Georgetown: “We are of the unshakeable belief that the people of Guyana expressed their will at the ballot box and as a result, the 3 person CARICOM Observer Group concludes that the recount results are completely acceptable,” the CARICOM team report presented to GECOM stated.
The report stated that there is nothing preventing the Chair of the Guyana Elections Commission from declaring the results of the recount which has shown a victory for the People’s Progressive Party.
“Overall, while we acknowledged that the were some defects in the recount of the March 02, 2020 votes cast for the General and Regional Elections, the team did not witness anything which would render the recount and by extension, the casting of the ballot on March 02, so grievously deficient procedural or technically (despite some irregularities) or sufficiently deficient to have thwarted the will of the people and subsequently prevent the elections results and its declaration by GECOM from reflecting the will of the voters. The actual count of the vote was indeed transparent,” the report underscored.
The team stated that the imprudent public utterances of some GECOM Commissioners and others about migrant voting, phantom voting, and implied impersonation sounded an threatening tone for the elections.
“The recounting of the votes was conducted with as much precision as possible and with absolutely no hint of bias on the part of the GECOM station workers. Their impartiality with respect to the vote recount was outstanding….The constant references to irregularities made by GECOM Commissioners, for instance, could not but have a deleterious impact on the body of which they were part of” and the GECOM Commissioner were therefore complicit in the assault on the legitimacy and the independence of the institution.
As such, the team has recommended a political audit to be conducted of the operations and behaviour of GECOM, both of the Commission and the Secretariat.
“Yes, the recount suggests that the poll was far from perfect but the imperfections cannot deny that the elections and therefore the recount were reasonably credible,” the report noted.
Of the 460,352 valid votes cast, the incumbent A Partnership for National Unity+Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) has won 217,920 and the People’s Progressive Party 233,336. The three ‘joinder’ parties- A New and United Guyana (ANUG), Liberty and Justice Party (LJP) and The New Movement (TNM) got a total of 5,214 votes.
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