All eyes are once again turned to the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) which is expected to announce a date for the start of the National Recount today.
Last Friday after finalizing the operational parameters of the proposed recount, the Commission announced that the Order governing its implementation would be gazetted after a “start date” was determined. This date in turn was dependent on the travel schedule of the High Level team of scrutineers from CARICOM.
On Monday the National COVID-19 Taskforce Force announced that a chartered flight has been approved to transport the team members to Guyana tomorrow. It was expected that the Commission would have therefore met yesterday for its weekly statutory meeting but the meeting has instead been scheduled for today.
Neither CARICOM nor GECOM has announced the names of persons who have agreed to participate in the process.
A similar team which had travelled to Guyana for an aborted recount in March had been chaired by the former Attorney-General and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Dominica Francine Baron, and included former Minister of Finance of Grenada Anthony Boatswain; Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government of UWI Cynthia Barrow-Giles; Chief Electoral Officer of Barbados Angela Taylor; and Chief Elections Officer of Trinidad and Tobago Fern Narcis-Scope.
It is not clear if this team or a new one will return as their ability to travel is dependent on a negative result from a COVID-19 test. In the interim the secretariat under the direction of Chief Election Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield is moving ahead with its own preparations. Public Relations Officer Yolanda Ward in an invited comment yesterday said that the secretariat is on track.
She noted that double the number of GECOM staff required to operate the 10 workstations have been identified and are set to be trained in the recount parameters tomorrow.
“We have catered for backup just in case of slippage,” she explained, adding that 90% of procurement of equipment such as projectors has been completed.
Ward also explained that the secretariat is working to ensure that all recommended measures are put in place to protect those participating in the recount from COVID-19. One such recommendation from the Ministry of Public Health is for all disposable/surgical masks used to be changed after every 30-60 minutes.
Calculations based on the number of persons expected to be present and the number of hours in each work day suggest that at minimum in excess of 30,000 masks will be needed over the 25 days the recount is expected to take.
As this commodity is currently in short supply worldwide questions have been raised about the feasibility of implementing this recommendation.
Ward however maintained that the Commission has adopted the task force’s report and the secretariat is working to implement the recommendations.
