Georgetown: Former Attorney General (AG) and Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall said any court action before the official declaration of the final results of the March 2 General and Regional Elections would be a “misconceived use of the legal process”.
According to the vote tabulation, the PPP/C secured 233,336 votes while the APNU/AFC garnered 217,920 – a difference of 15,416 votes.
Nandlall on Monday outside the Arthur Chung Conference Center where the final tabulation process was being wrapped up said “there should be no court action; at least not challenging the results before the declaration. Once filed before, that seeks to stop the declaration or seeks to impugn the results produced by the national recount prior to the declaration of the results, and not by an elections petition; in my humble view, would be misconceived use of the legal process.”
The A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) had subjectively raised a number of objections, claiming fraud that migrants and dead persons had voted in the March 2 polls, but no evidence was ever supplied based on the allegations.
The coalition has tried numerous ways to delay the recount with random claims of voter fraud.
Nandlall reiterated that all such claims must be dealt with by way of an elections petition, after the declaration of the results and a president is sworn in.
“Those are matters that ought to form the subject of an elections petition and present to an elections court by the proper procedure, once the declaration of the results is made,” he noted.
The recount votes will have to be certified. That is expected to be done by the end of Tuesday.
Once all the certificates are in, the Chief Elections Officer, Keith Lowenfield has to provide a report to the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM). This report will contain the total votes cast for each party and will include a summary of the observation reports from the statements of recount.
Lowenfield has until June 13 to do so. The Commission, consisting of the chair, Justice Claudette Singh and three commissioners each from the PPP and APNU+AFC, will then deliberate on it. They have until June 16 to ask Lowenfield to prepare a final report for them to declare the results of the elections.
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