Georgetown: It has been three days since the five-member high-level team from CARICOM arrived in Guyana to supervise the recount at the invitation of incumbent President, David Granger in agreement with Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo, but the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) continues to stall the recount process with excuses.
On Tuesday, an emergency meeting with all six Commissioners to deal with issues surrounding the national recount of ballots cast at the March 2 General and Regional Elections.
On Monday, the Commission said it was awaiting a signed agreement between Jagdeo, Granger and CARICOM before starting the recount. This was signed late Monday night.
On Monday evening, officials from the various election observer missions and party agents converged at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre (ACCC), Liliendaal, Greater Georgetown, to commence the counting of the Region Four ballot boxes which arrived under heavy Police escort. Stakeholders stood outside and waited for hours as the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) made the logistic arrangements to commence the process but this never got underway.
Meanwhile, GECOM on Tuesday said it receipt of a copy of the Aide Memoire signed by President Granger and Leader of the Opposition, Bharrat Jagdeo and witnessed by the Caricom Secretary-General, Irwin Larocque.
As a consequence, the Commission is currently examining the legal ramifications of this agreement in accordance with the Constitution of Guyana.
“While the Commission has considered the proposal and has implemented systems for the operationalization of the exercise; as a safeguard mechanism, it is necessary for all the legal issues to be properly addressed including the gazetting of the process as requested by the high level Caricom delegation. Once finalized, the counting would commence immediately. The outcome of the Commission’s decision in this regard would be communicated and adequate notice on the start time for the exercise would be provided,” GECOM stated.
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