Early general elections were held in Guyana on 11 May 2015, alongside regional elections as a result of President Donald Ramotar proroguing the National Assembly.[1] The result was a victory for the A Partnership for National Unity+Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) alliance, which won 33 of the 65 seats in the National Assembly. Following the elections, APNU leader David A. Granger was sworn in as president on 16 May 2015.[2]
Background
Early elections were called as a result of a stand-off between President Donald Ramotar and the National Assembly;[3] after the President had defied spending cuts imposed by the National Assembly, the legislature called for a motion of no confidence. Ramotar subsequently suspended the National Assembly in November 2014 and dissolved it three months later.[4] Ramotar announced the election date on 20 January 2015.[1]
Electoral system
The 65 elected members of the National Assembly were elected using closed listproportional representation from a single nationwide 40-seat constituency and 10 sub-national constituencies with a total of 25 seats. Seats are allocated using the Hare quota.[5]
The President was elected by a first-past-the-postdouble simultaneous vote system, whereby each list nominated a presidential candidate and the presidential election itself was won by the candidate of the list having a plurality.[6]
^Bharrat Jagdeo was the leader of the PPP/C at the time of the elections, but Ramotar was chosen as the party's presidential candidate as Jagdeo was ineleigible to serve a third term as President of Guyana
^Combined result of the APNU and AFC, which ran separately