Guyana ruling party rejects vote recount in election chaos
Associated Press | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 4 years, 7 months AGO
GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) — A major dispute erupted Monday in Guyana and threatened to further destabilize the South American country after the governing party rejected a recount of votes cast during the March 2 general elections.
The ruling multiparty coalition that has been in power since 2015 accused the main opposition People’s Progressive Party of electoral fraud and said it would go to court to prevent the elections commission from declaring a winner. The announcement was made a day after the commission finished recounting about 400,000 votes, including disputed votes from about 30 boxes from coastal villages that the ruling coalition said contained only votes for the opposition that it wants invalidated.
The opposition party, which is leading by three parliamentary seats, has rejected the fraud allegations and said former Housing Minister Irfaan Ali should be sworn in while the court resolves any alleged irregularities. The People’s Progressive Party led Guyana for 23 years until 2015, when it lost to the ruling coalition led by President David Granger, who is seeking a second five-year term.
The election is considered the most important since Guyana became independent from Britain in 1966, given the recent discovery of major oil and gas deposits near its coastline. But the impasse has largely paralyzed life in the country of some 750,000 people., The Finance Ministry warned it’s unable to access funds amid the coronavirus pandemic because there is no functioning Parliament, which was dissolved in December.
ARTICLES BY ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hong Kong police arrest 4 from university student union
HONG KONG (AP) — Four members of a Hong Kong university student union were arrested Wednesday for allegedly advocating terrorism by paying tribute to a person who stabbed a police officer and then killed himself, police said.
For South Sudan mothers, COVID-19 shook a fragile foundation
JUBA, South Sudan (AP) — Paska Itwari Beda knows hunger all too well. The young mother of five children — all of them under age 10 — sometimes survives on one bowl of porridge a day, and her entire family is lucky to scrape together a single daily meal, even with much of the money Beda makes cleaning offices going toward food. She goes to bed hungry in hopes her children won’t have to work or beg like many others in South Sudan, a country only a decade old and already ripped apart by civil war.
For South Sudan mothers, COVID-19 shook a fragile foundation
JUBA, South Sudan (AP) — Paska Itwari Beda knows hunger all too well. The young mother of five children — all of them under age 10 — sometimes survives on one bowl of porridge a day, and her entire family is lucky to scrape together a single daily meal, even with much of the money Beda makes cleaning offices going toward food. She goes to bed hungry in hopes her children won’t have to work or beg like many others in South Sudan, a country only a decade old and already ripped apart by civil war.