The High Level Team of scrutineers promised by CARICOM for the recount of the ballots from the March 2 general elections is scheduled to arrive in Guyana this afternoon. This is according to Public Relations Officer of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Yolanda Ward.
Ward indicated last evening that three persons are expected. They are Senior Lecturer at the University of the West Indies Cynthia Barrow-Giles, member of the Antigua and Barbuda Electoral Commission John Jarvis and supervisor of the Electoral Commission of St Vincent Sylvester King.
With their arrival it is expected that a date for the start of the exercise will be announced and the Order governing its operation will be gazetted.
Since last Friday the Commission has been awaiting the arrival of the team to move forward with the recount. The country continues to be in the grip of a major electoral crisis with the result of the election yet to be declared eight weeks on after an uproar over two fictitious declarations for District Four that were intended to rig the elections in favour of the incumbent APNU+AFC.
The National COVID-19 Taskforce had announced that the team had been approved to travel yesterday provided its members had received a negative test for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).
Notably while Barrow-Giles was a member of the five-member team which arrived for the aborted recount on March 15 she is the only member of that team to return. Jarvis and King meanwhile were part of the 17-member observer team which was in Guyana on polling day.
GECOM’s secretariat has also moved forward with its preparations for the recount process as it conducted a training exercise for the 80-plus staff members who will work.
Ward had explained to Stabroek News that while only 40 GECOM employees will be required to man the 10 workstations at any given time, GECOM has decided to retain twice that number to prevent any “slippages or pause in the process”
Those not working will be on standby to provide any necessary shift changes during the 11-hour count.
The next scheduled activity is a meeting between the commission, secretariat and stakeholders such as political parties and observer missions.
This meeting is scheduled for 10:30 am on Saturday.
The ballot boxes which are currently stored at the Commission’s High Street Headquarters are expected to be transported to the Arthur Chung Conference Centre at least one day before the scheduled start of the process.
