New CARICOM Chair Ralph Gonsalves yesterday urged respect of Wednesday’s Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) ruling by all stakeholders and he said he expected an early declaration by GECOM of the result of the March 2nd general elections.
Gonsalves’ statement underlines CARICOM’s resolve to ensure that a free and fair elections result is declared and picks up from where former Chair, Barbadian Prime Minister, Mia Mottley had left off.
Gonsalves, the Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, said that CARICOM welcomes the progress towards the finalising of the electoral process here following the ruling of the CCJ on Wednesday.
“The Community calls on all stakeholders to respect the ruling of the CCJ, Guyana’s final court of appeal”, he said.
Gonsalves, presently the longest serving CARICOM Head, noted that the CCJ itself had pointed to the lengthy delay in declaring the result.
“Indeed, the CCJ in the summary judgement aptly stated: `It has been four months since the elections were held and the country has been without a Parliament for well over a year. No one in Guyana would regard this to be a satisfactory state of affairs. We express the fervent hope that there would quickly be a peaceable restoration of normalcy’”, Gonsalves noted.
Accordingly, he said that the Court’s ruling should lead to a declaration by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) of the results of the Elections held on 2 March 2020, “without further delay”.
CARICOM, he said, commends the continuing patience and calm of the people of Guyana and calls on all stakeholders to respect the rule of law.
CARICOM has invested heavily in ensuring the declaration of a fair result. Mottley was able to broker an agreement between caretaker President David Granger and Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo for a recount after a crisis blew up over the District Four count. A team of scrutineers was dispatched but this mission was aborted after an APNU+AFC candidate went to court. After that matter was disposed of, a second observer team was dispatched and they observed the recounting of ballots over 33 days. They later submitted a report declaring that the recount provided an adequate basis for the declaration of a result. Despite anointing CARICOM as the most legitimate interlocutor in the Guyana situation, Granger then bypassed the report by claiming that there had been massive fraud at the March 2nd general elections. He restated this position as recently as Wednesday but CARICOM is holding to the line that the recount provides a verifiable basis for the declaration to occur and that this must be done as soon as possible.
