Georgetown: “A decision seems to be likely today,” Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Chair (Rtd) Justice Claudette Singh said on Wednesday indicating that a date will be decided upon for the commencement of the national recount of votes in Guyana.
She said the exercise could be finished by April 30, 2020. The GECOM Chair made the disclosure during an official visit to the Arthur Chung Conference Centre, Liliendaal East Coast Demerara.
Also in attendance were Elections Commissioners, Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield, Deputy Chief Elections Officer Roxanne Myers and other GECOM staff.
With Guyana’s Constitution stating that Parliament must convene within four months after its dissolution, the GECOM Chairman said once the recount starts the April 30, 2020 deadline would be met.
“Of course it would. Once it starts, it would be finished,” she said, adding that she did not expect a constitutional deadlock if the recount is not completed by April 30. “I do not envisage that at all,” she said.
Singh said once GECOM begins the recount, previous declarations would not be material anymore. “When we would have gone into the recount stage, we will no longer come back to those declarations.”
She confirmed that the site visit to the Arthur Chung Conference Centre was aimed at determining how many work stations would be deployed to count the ballots.
She said she was satisfied with the visit. “I am but I do not know about other commissioners,” she said.
The Chair of GECOM has also written to the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) seeking to re-engage them to take up a leading role in the process.
The Court of Appeal had ruled that GECOM could not hand over its supervisory powers to an outside body, but the re-engagement of CARICOM will see GECOM leading the process and not CARICOM.
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