Having completed and delivered their report to CARICOM on observations of the recount of the March 2nd General and Regional elections here, the three-member CARICOM team is today scheduled to leave for their respective home countries.
Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Chairperson Claudette Singh is expected to formally receive the report this morning.
“On behalf of the Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community, His Excellency Ambassador Irwin LaRocque, I would like to inform you that the Report of the CARICOM Observer Team on the Recount of Guyana’s General and Regional Elections of 2 March 2020 will be delivered to the Chair of the Guyana Elections Commission imminently,” Leonard Robertson, Communications Adviser of the Office of the Secretary General of CARICOM yesterday said in response to questions from Stabroek News.
According to the gazetted recount order, “The CARICOM Scrutinising Team shall submit a report to the Commission which may include their observations, recommendations, and conclusions”.
Led by Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Cynthia Barrow-Giles, the three-member team arrived in Guyana on May 2nd and observed the recount of ballot boxes for 33 days beginning on May 6th. The two other members are John Jarvis, Commissioner of the Antigua and Barbuda Electoral Commission and Sylvester King, Deputy Super-visor of Elections of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
This newspaper understands that the seven-member commission will meet today at 11 am to begin the first round of discussions on Chief Election Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield’s report, which has said that the recount result is not credible. It is unclear if they will then also be given a copy of the CARICOM report.
While confirming that a meeting is set today with the commissioners, both government- and opposition- nominated commissioners Vincent Alexander and Sase Gunraj respectively said that they will not discuss Lowenfield’s report publicly until after the commission has deliberated on it.
While confirming that the PPP/C won the majority of votes at the March 2nd polls, Lowenfield reported to GECOM that the results of the process that he oversaw do not meet the standard of fair and credible elections.
The CEO’s summation for each Electoral District contends that identified anomalies and instances of voter impersonation do not appear to satisfy the criteria of impartiality, fairness, and compliance with provisions of the Constitution and the Representation of the People Act.
“Consequently, on the basis of the votes counted and the information furnished from the recount, it cannot be ascertained that the results… meet the standard of fair and credible elections,” he concluded in each summary of the observation reports for every District.
Lowenfield’s shocking report has already attracted the criticism that he went beyond his mandate. His report will now be a major test for GECOM Chair Claudette Singh, who will have to vote in the coming days on whether the recount result should be used to declare the winner of the crisis-ridden elections.
A team from the Organisation of American States, which also observed the recount, has said that the result can be used to declare the winner of the polls.
The Order which governs the recently concluded National Recount provided for the matrices for the recount of the 10 Electoral Districts to be tabulated by the CEO before being submitted in a report, together with a summary of the observation reports for each District, to GECOM.
These matrices, which were certified by GECOM’s Secretariat, show that the PPP/C’s list of candidates has secured 233,336 votes compared to the 217,920 secured by the incumbent APNU+AFC coalition. This means the PPP/C has won the March 2 General Elections by 15,416 votes.
Lowenfield, however, has argued, in line with the position of the APNU+AFC, that the results were not credible.
In a blistering condemnation of his own performance and that of thousands of polling day staff employed by the Commission, Lowenfield has claimed in District Four, for example, that a total of 466 ballot boxes stand affected due to a total of 1,862 anomalies and/or alleged voter impersonation and unreconciled ballot boxes.
“In other words, approximately 55% of all votes cast for general elections [in that District] stand to be impacted due to either anomalies and/or voter impersonation or unreconciled ballot boxes. Specifically, 7.2% of the votes cast were impacted by anomalies, 39.2% were impacted by voter impersonation, 3.4% impacted by both anomalies/irregularities and voter impersonation, and 5.7% impacted by unreconciled ballot boxes,” he claimed.
