Guyana Ruling Party Leads Amid Vote Fraud Charges

The party that has ruled Guyana for 21 years took a substantial lead Tuesday in general elections, apparently assuring it the presidency for the next five years.

But all five opposition parties charged that the Monday balloting was unfair. They said authorized elections agents were refused entry or ejected from the polls and that hundreds of voters were turned away because of discrepancies in the voting lists.

With more than 44% of the country’s 400,000 voters accounted for, the ruling Peoples National Congress Party had 139,054 votes, while the Marxist People’s Progressive Peoples, its closest rival, had 23,785.

The mixed-race Working Peoples Alliance had 4,584 votes, the conservative United Force had 7,563 and the Peoples Democratic Movement 119, according to official results from three districts, including Georgetown. The Democratic Labor Movement had 875 votes, while the National Democratic Front had 116.

Earlier, government-appointed election officials in this small nation on the north coast of South America said preliminary results showed that the ruling party had won 80% of the vote. But the opposition immediately charged that the balloting was rigged.

“The official results do not reflect the truth,” said Clement Rohee, elections representative for the People’s Progressive Party.

The government, in a statement issued late Monday, denied charges that the army had taken over ballot boxes in several outlying regions. “The chief of state deplores this continued vilification of the security forces by the People’s Progressive Party,” it said.

An election victory would assure President Desmond Hoyte’s National Congress Party five more years in power. Hoyte was inaugurated Aug. 24 by the National Assembly after President Forbes Burnham’s death Aug. 6.

Hoyte, who was Burnham’s prime minister and was unopposed to succeed him, pledged better relations with neighboring countries. He took over a country that was saddled with a $1.3-billion foreign debt despite government efforts to make the former British colony a showpiece of Third World development.