Georgetown: Ballot recount for Region Five- Mahaica/ West Berbice was completed on Monday as the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) as those two counting stations that were assigned to Region Five will now being used to recount 55 boxes of ballots for Region Eight (Potaro-Siparuni) and 73 boxes for Region Nine (Upper Takatu-Upper Essequibo), GECOM spokeswoman Yolanda Ward confirmed.
At the start of the 20th day, less than 50% of the 2,339 ballot boxes were counted and GECOM will be extending the 25 days’ timeline for the exercise.
GECOM Commissioner Sase Gunraj said that the Commission will be looking to see how it can increase efficiency at the stations currently set up.
He also noted that GECOM will be looking to implement two additional workstation this week.
A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) officials have said their coalition would refuse to sign any other certificates of results for the remaining regions after the GECOM commission indicated definitively how the objections in the observation reports would be addressed.
Elections Commissioners from both the opposition and coalition camps have said refusal to sign certificates of results will not render the recount illegal.
The APNU+AFC is claiming it lost many votes as a result of persons voting in the place of the deceased and migrated which were on a bloated official list of electors.
The commission has requested APNU/AFC to formally submit evidence the party has to substantiate those claims.
Former Speaker of the National Assembly Ralph Ramkarran had said Sunday GECOM is not designed as an evidentiary institution or as a trial body and therefore cannot collect evidence or investigate claims that persons who are dead or have migrated were marked as having voted in the March 2 elections.
He explained that the elections body can only acknowledge that such claims were made.
“It is not possible for GECOM to order a recount under the Election Laws Amendment Act and at the end of the process to abandon a declaration of that recount and then return to the count and issue a declaration based on the report which has been made to GECOM by the Chief Elections Officer in relation to his invitation to make a declaration,” he explained.
Further, Ramkarran explained that a declaration by the Commission was now mandatory because Parliament has been already dissolved and cannot be recalled.
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