GECOM has set Wednesday for the start of the much-delayed recount of votes from the March 2nd general elections but a major battle remains to be settled over live streaming of the exercise and yesterday seven of the parties which contested reiterated reservations over aspects of the process.
With a high-level CARICOM team already here for the recount, GECOM met for nearly five hours yesterday during which there were fiery exchanges among commissioners.
Except for the incumbent APNU+AFC, all of the participants at the March 2nd polls have advocated for live-streaming of the entire recount process arguing that it allows for transparency. When they met with the Commission last Saturday they had expressed these views.
“We intend to gazette the order (for the recount) tomorrow after some very minor changes we are looking to do so tomorrow morning and we are looking at a start date of the recount process to be Wednesday,” opposition-appointed Commissioner Sase Gunraj told reporters following the meeting which, started at 1 pm and ended just after 5:30pm.
In giving a synopsis of what he felt were the highpoints of the meeting, he said, “The Chair brought up the issue of the live stream. She wants the ballot box shown to the public before it is opened. She is advocating for an audio feed of the entire process. She agrees that the entire tabulation process will be live streamed. I’m still advocating for a full live stream (of the entire process), notwithstanding! I am expecting by lunch tomorrow we have a gazetted order.”
GECOM Chair Claudette Singh has previously signalled that she is open to the live streaming of the tabulation of votes for each region but not the entire recount.
Gunraj said that all other processes for the recount, such as to sequence of the regions to be counted, the number of work stations and the proposed duration of the count remain unchanged.
However, both Gunraj and Government-appointed Commissioner Vincent Alexander said that while the Commission settled on the start date and that the entire tabulation process be live streamed, Chairperson Singh was studying proposals from eight other parties which contested the elections that there be a complete live-streamed process.
Alexander said that Singh favours ballot boxes being publicly scrutinized before their opening to ensure that they were not tampered with.
The GECOM Chairperson did not brief the press following the meeting nor did the Commission issue a release on what transpired yesterday and what exactly is the position of the Chairperson.
“She agreed that the entire tabulation process be live streamed. She said she will come to a final decision today on positions put forward both for and against the entire recount process but also advocated for an audio feed of the entire process,” Gunraj told the Stabroek News .
For Alexander’s part, he said, “At the point of tabulation, there will be streaming, broadcasting of the tabulated results. She also said that she would wish to see the ballot boxes when they’re out of the container, a picture is taken so that it is clear to the viewer that nobody tampered with the seals and in addition to that, she said she wishes to have an audio broadcast as the count proceeds, and that is what she unequivocally said.”
It is unclear how an audio broadcast would operate since there are 10 different work stations.
Flared
Tensions flared during the meeting yesterday afternoon and there were periodic outbursts of shouting among the Commissioners.
From High Street, Kingston, reporters could at one time hear clearly Gunraj shouting at APNU+AFC Commissioner Charles Corbin, “You are calling me a liar?” with Corbin screaming back at him “I am not calling you anything, I am repeating that you made a commitment and now you are walking back on it!”
Gunraj would later explain that “things got heated” and that most times the vociferous outbursts were when it got to the issues of visual live-streaming.
The PPP/C has given a list of matters to the Com-mission that it says are essential for the recount of ballots.
The party told GECOM that there is nothing in the law which prohibits live-streaming of the process.
“If anything at all, the Chairperson’s own exhortations to the High Court, the legislation and the Constitution, under which the recount is being done, contemplate such and similar facility which would lend public confidence, integrity, fairness and impartiality to the process,” former Attorney General Anil Nandlall said.
“This recount is being done pursuant to section 22 of the Election Laws (Amendment) Act and Article 162 of the Constitution of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana. Both of which aggregate to empower GECOM `…to issue such instructions and take such action as appear to it necessary or expedient to ensure impartiality and fairness…’ (Article 162(1)(b)). The Chairperson’s reliance on section 90 of the Representation of the People Act to reject a proposal to live-stream the process is as convenient as it is preposterous. The Chairperson rejected a motion that the recount be done in accordance with sections 84, 86, 87 and 89 of the very Act but conveniently chooses to rely upon section 90.
No relevance
“Section 90 of the Representation of the People Act has no relevance to a recount. It applies only to the counting of ballots at a polling station. It is intended to protect the identity of the voter before the declaration of the results. These results were not only declared but the State-ments of Poll have already been posted at polling stations throughout the country. Live-streaming, therefore, can only enhance integrity, boost public confidence and augment transparency and fairness, in the process,” he added.
The PPP/C and its commissioners have objected to the proposed cross-matching of the voters’ list with the ballots cast during the recount process saying it was a violation of the law.
“It will be observed from the checklist (appendix I – a copy of which is hereto attached), more specifically, items 1 and 5 of the said checklist, in conducting this recount, GECOM would be acting in violation of section 89 (2) of the Representation of the People Act and therefore, unlawfully. For example, GECOM plans to use the marked list and ballot counterfoils in the conduct of the recount. This is both unnecessary and unlawful. Section 89 (2) of the Representation of the People Act provides that, `the Returning Officer shall not open the sealed packets containing tendered ballot papers, marked copies of the Official List of Electors or part thereof, or counterfoils of used ballot papers’. Why is GECOM knowingly taking a course that is in direct collision with the law?” the party questioned.
This posture irked Alexander who yesterday said that he could not understand the reasoning that GECOM is within the law to live-stream in the interest of transparency but not cross match the list with ballots.
“They are screaming transparency…so the question arises: You are screaming transparency, you are using the latitude of [Articles] 162 and 22 to call for streaming, but then you want to take away that latitude when it comes to how we conduct the count?” Alexander said.
“If you are transparent, what is it you want to hide in relation to matters such as taking the list, which was used at the place of poll on which list names were struck off? …That’s the procedure- to determine how many persons turned up to vote and then to check the actual ballots to see if there is a correlation between the number of persons recorded as having turned up to vote and the number of ballots in the box. What’s the difficulty with that and transparency?” he asked.
A three-member CARICOM team, led by Cynthia Barrow-Giles, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government at the University of the West Indies (UWI), and including John Jarvis, Commissioner of the Antigua and Barbuda Electoral Commission and Sylvester King, Deputy Supervisor of Elections of St. Vincent and the Grenadines are here to oversee the process.
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 as CARICOM has indicated that the other members were unavailable for the present mission, which is expected to last for 25 days. Jarvis and King were part of the 17-member CARICOM observer team which was in Guyana to monitor the general elections.
The first attempt to recount the votes from the general elections had been aborted after a candidate of the incumbent APNU+AFC went to court to block it and succeeded in obtaining an injunction. Upon the collapse of the mission, CARICOM Chairperson Mia Mottley had warned that there were forces here trying to prevent the counting of all of the ballots from the elections. Ahead of the current mission’s arrival, Mottley said on Friday that a legitimate government depends on a transparent recount of votes.
On April 24, GECOM decided that the long-awaited recount will take approximately 25 days.
Seven parties
Yesterday, following their meeting with GECOM on Saturday, seven parties issued a joint statement setting out their issues of concern as follows:
1. Live streaming of the entire recount process, including tabulation of results;
2. The sequence and manner in which the ballots of the various districts will be counted;
3. Security of the containers containing ballot boxes before, during and after the recount, the physical location of the recount and of persons involved in the process;
4. Accreditation of persons involved in the process, including party representatives.
5. The immediate approval of observer status for all international and local observers, which were involved from the start of Guyana’s 2020 regional and general elections process; and facilitating the attendance of the Carter Center and OAS representatives at the recount.
The parties said that the GECOM plan provided to them suggests a deviation from a previous position of GECOM that districts would’ve been counted in ‘chronological’ order. The proposal to count various districts simultaneously poses several serious issues related to security and logistics and “quite possibly, courts disaster. We therefore urge that the ballots be counted one district at a time, commencing with District 1”.
The statement was subscribed to by:
A New and United Guyana
Change Guyana
Liberty and Justice Party
People’s Progressive Party/Civic
People’s Republic Party
The New Movement
United Republican Party
