The [Caribbean] Community calls on all concerned to ensure a credible and transparent recount process in order to provide legitimacy to any government, which would be sworn in as a result. This process must be completed without further delay.
Prime Minister of Barbados & Chair of
CARICOM, Mia Mottley
The people of Guyana need this election results to be finalised. There is too much uncertainty, people are impatient and they want to get this over with but they want a credible and transparent process. We have always said that every vote must be counted and we’re looking forward to the successful conclusion to this election.
Canadian High Commissioner to Guyana,
Lilian Chatterjee
It has been 63 days since the 2020 general and regional elections were held, and the Elections Commission is yet to declare the winner to enable a new government to be formed, legislators to be selected, normalcy to be restored in relation to the affairs of the State. The results of the original tabulation of the ballots were deemed severely lacking in terms of transparency and credibility as regards Region 4. This has forced the Commission to agree to a recount of all the votes cast in the presence of a CARICOM high-level team.
Status of the recount
The high-level team, comprising three persons, arrived on Friday, compliments of the Canadian government which has funded the cost of the trip, including accommodation. The recount is expected to begin during the course of this week with Regions 1 to 4 to be counted simultaneously followed by the other six regions while Region Four is still being counted. The Commission met yesterday to agree on the exact date for the commencement of the exercise but up to the time of writing there has been no word.
The Carter Center had announced its intention to observe the recount but its efforts to obtain the necessary approval from the Government for one of its representatives to travel to Guyana, have so far not been successful. The Canadian High Commissioner has expressed the hope that the Government will grant the requisite approval. The OAS has also indicated an interest in observing the recount and will be fielding two locally-based staff members, while the EU is unlikely to participate. It is also not clear whether the Common-wealth Secretariat will field a team. It will be recalled that on 5 March, the Foreign Minister threatened to withdraw the accreditation of foreign observers over the public disclosure of what they observed on this day at the Region 4 Returning Officer’s office.
Considering that the tabulation of the ballots for Region 4 has been the centre of the controversy in relation to the overall election results, it would be more appropriate for the recount of the Region 4 votes to await the arrival of all the international observer groups. In this regard, every effort should be made to facilitate their presence, and no obstacles should be placed in their way. There have also been criticisms of GECOM’s decision to simultaneously recount the ballots for Region 4 with those of Regions 1 to 3, considering that the former accounts for nearly 50 percent of the votes cast nationwide. This approach may create confusion and inject complications. A simpler and more transparent approach would be for the exercise to be undertaken sequentially, starting with Region 1.
Declarations by Returning Officers
The Commission had decided that the declarations by the Returning Officers (ROs) for all ten Regions remain valid unless they are replaced by the results of the recount. While this may be so in respect of Regions 1-3 and 6-10, the same cannot be said of Region 4 because the RO did not follow the requirements of the law before making the declaration. In fact, the RO made two declarations on 5 March and 13 March but the court vitiated first. The second declaration also did not meet the requirements of the law; defied the Chief Justice’s ruling; and was deemed by all the observers, diplomatic missions in Guyana and the political parties contesting the elections (except APNU+AFC) to have been
significantly lacking in transparency and credibility. Therefore, Region 4’s declaration cannot be regarded as legal.
The implication of GECOM’s decision is that if no satisfactory outcome is achieved from the recount exercise, the Commission may very well rely on these declarations as the basis for announcing the winner of the elections. If this happens, it would be tremendous setback for democracy and the rule of law, and is almost certain to provoke sanctions from the international community. The U.S. Ambassador to Guyana has made it clear that her country is serious about the imposition of sanctions, should such an eventuality occur.
Live streaming of the recount exercise
On Saturday, GECOM met with the political parties contesting the elections, and the main issue discussed relates to the live streaming and the use of cameras and cell phones during the recount. All the parties present, except APNU+AFC, have argued for these to be allowed in the interest of transparency. The Commission had earlier decided against the live streaming of the recount. The U.S. Ambassador is on record as having stated that live streaming would add credibility to the recount and will provide citizens with confidence that the exercise was undertaken in a fair and transparent manner. GECOM is reconsidering its decision on the matter, and the hope is that it will reverse its earlier decision on the matter.
Making available copies of Statements of Poll
GECOM has also ruled against the request for the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to make available to the commissioners his copies of the Statements of Polls (SOPs) that have been used in the tabulation of the election results. This is despite the fact that copies of these SOPs were posted at the various polling stations and were made available to all the political parties contesting the elections. The SOPs are therefore in the public domain. If there is nothing untoward in relation to these SOPs and the tabulation of the results, they should be made available to allow for comparison with the copies of the SOPs in the possession of the political parties.
Judging from what transpired on those two days of infamy – 5 and 13 March – as reported by both local and international observers, it is evident that the results for Region 4 were severely tampered with to negate the more than 50,000 votes’ lead by one of the political parties contesting the elections after the tabulation of all the other regions had been completed. GECOM’s rejection of the request to have the CEO’s copies of the SOPs to be made available, appears therefore to be lacking in merit.
Draft Order for the recount exercise
GECOM has prepared a draft Order to be gazetted as soon as the date for the commencement of the recount is agreed on. Two items are worthy of some commentary, apart from the proposal for the simultaneous recounting of the votes for Regions 1 to 4 and 6 to 10, which has already been dealt with. The first is that the exercise is to be conducted by employees of the GECOM under the direct supervision of the Chief Election Officer or his delegate. There have, however, been calls for the removal from the exercise of all persons who have been fingered in the manipulation of the Region 4 vote tabulation. However, the RO for Region 4 appears to have been the only person to be excluded from the recount.
The second relates to the CARICOM high-level team submitting a report at the end of the process which may be considered by GECOM. The word “may” would suggest that it is not mandatory for GECOM to accept the observations, conclusions and recommendations contained in the report, no doubt due to the constitutional status of the Commission. There is, however, no provision for the high-level team to issue an interim report and for it to be made public. In the circumstances, the electorate will have to await until the end of the recount exercise for an independent assessment of the results and what transpired during the exercise. This may very well take us to sometime in July 2020.
Concluding remarks
The nation holds its deep breath in the hope that the recount will be done expeditiously, transparently and with the highest degree of credibility. In any election, there are winners and losers. The latter must gracefully accede to the will of the people, and seek to fulfill their responsibilities through the legislature by holding the elected government to account for the way it manages the affairs of the State on behalf of the people. How well they do that, may very well to determine the winner in the next cycle of elections. The country cries out for the adoption of this course of action.
We had argued several times over that the APNU+AFC Administration should have accepted in good faith the validity of the vote of no confidence, rather than seeking judicial review of the Speaker of the National Assembly’s ruling. Had this been done, elections would have been held by March 2019, and the country restored to a state of normalcy. One year later, the future of the country remains uncertain as to whether it will remain a sovereign democratic State with sovereignty belonging to the people, as dictated by Articles 1 and 9 of the Constitution.
If there is no satisfactory outcome from the recount exercise, we believe that it would be better for an interim Administration to established comprising persons of high repute from civil society to manage the affairs of the State over a period of not more than 18 months. During this period, a new framework for the conduct of fresh elections should be developed and implemented. This should include the scrapping of the “winner takes all” approach and replacing it with a form of shared governance, considering that the two main political parties derive their support and electoral standing overwhelmingly from the two major ethnic groups.
The present configuration of GECOM should also be scrapped to remove political appointees and replacing them with truly independent and reputable individuals from civil society. Staff of GECOM should also be screened, and those with political affiliation and who have displayed bias in the past should be removed.
