Georgetown - The presidential candidate and Prime Minister, Ms Janet Jagan, was leading yesterday in early returns from Guyana's national elections, officials said. With some 80,000 of more than 400,000 votes cast in Monday's election counted, Ms Jagan (77), a Chicago-born leftist, was favoured to win a five-year presidential term in Guyana, a tiny former British colony on the north coast of South America.
Ms Jagan co-founded the ruling People's Progressive Party with her late husband, President Cheddi Jagan, Guyana's first freely-elected president, who died in March. In second place was the conservative former president, Mr Desmond Hoyte, whose 1985-1992 administration saw increased foreign investment and economic liberalisation.
The PPP mostly represents the nation's majority Indo-Guyanese population, descendants of Indian indentured servants. Mr Hoyte's People's National Congress represents African-Guyanese, who make up 39 per cent of the population in this nation of 730,000.