Apr 04, 2020 News
By Kemol King
A national recount of the votes cast in Guyana’s 2020 General and Regional Elections has been confirmed. The order in which the recount will be done will be in numerical order. However, a Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) release uses the term ‘chronological’.
The decision to have the recount was made at a meeting of the Commission yesterday.
Kaieteur News understands that the Commissioners, before making the decision, had been involved in a back and forth discussion, which the Chair, Justice (ret’d) Claudette Singh SC brought to an end. She explained to the Commission that she would be unable to renege on her decision to undertake the recount. She decided that there will be a recount, against the backdrop of Article 162 (1) (b) of the Constitution, GECOM’s statement explained.
That article of the Constitution states that the electoral commission “shall issue such instructions and take such action as appear to it necessary or expedient to ensure impartiality, fairness and compliance with the provisions of this Constitution or of any Act of Parliament…”
The recount will not be supervised by CARICOM as was previously contemplated. Commissioner Sase Gunraj said that the recount does not hinge on the return of the CARICOM delegation to Guyana. Commissioner Vincent Alexander said that the recount will be supervised by the Commission.
Following the meeting yesterday, Alexander told Commission members that one concern he raised was that the Chair cited a contempt motion brought against her by the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) as a reason for the undertakings that she advocated for at the level of the Commission. Alexander held the view that a contempt order was not granted by the Court, and that the Commission should have therefore discussed the contempt motion. Nevertheless, he supported the recount.
The Commission asked Chief Elections Officer, Keith Lowenfield, to determine and provide a framework for the recount’s operationalisation. He saw it necessary to request guidance from the Commission to clarify certain legal and procedural issues. The statement said that once those are clarified, he would begin to contemplate the recount’s operationalisation.
Alexander said that this is because the recount is not one that was invoked by GECOM based on its constitutional powers, and that it is not under the Representation of the People Act. He said that it is not being dealt with under normal procedures as outlined in the Act.
The Commissioner explained that GECOM is expected to issue a clear directive and order for the recount to the secretariat, and that it is to decide whether the recount is merely a recount of the votes, or whether it will examine all of the materials in the ballot boxes, taking into consideration proxy votes and the votes of persons who voted without presenting their identification cards. He thinks that there’s a fair consensus that the latter has to happen.
He said, “it is clear that it will not be a merely numerical recount. It will be an examination of all that took place based on what is now in those boxes.”
Gunraj and Alexander were split on whether the same returning officers would all be utilised for the recount process. This question has been raised as pertinent, since the credibility of the district four returning officer, Clairmont Mingo, has been brought into question. He has produced declarations on two separate occasions which are vastly different. Both of the tabulation processes which led to those declarations were determined to lack transparency and credibility, as well as being at risk of electoral fraud, by a majority of the political parties and the international observers. One was ruled as unlawful by the High Court. A case in the Court questions the lawfulness of the other, on the same grounds.
Gunraj said that he will definitely advocate against the use of the same returning officers. Asked who would replace the returning officer, Gunraj pointed to the scores of deputy returning officers who also operated in Region Four. He explained that the law considers the deputies as returning officers as well. On the other hand, Alexander said that the recount is not governed by the Act, so he does not know the role the returning officers would play.
Based on statements made by Commissioners Gunraj and Alexander, there appears to be a lack of clarity about what will be done once the recount has concluded. Gunraj had said that the fact that the Commission recently voted to set aside Lowenfield’s report on the current elections results declarations, and the fact that GECOM voted to have the recount, both implied that the results of the recount will be accepted, though the methods of declaration still have to be decided on. Though he said it was an implied position of the Commission that the results of the recount would be accepted, he later said that it is an explicit position.
On the other side, Alexander said that the matter of what will happen at the end of the recount has not been decided on. Though the question was floated during the meeting, he said that GECOM is yet to sort out that modality. However, he rhetorically asked, “If you had corrupt elections and the recount brings that up, what is the purpose of the recount?”
The government-nominated Commissioner said that the recount is “clearly to determine a final count of the credibility of the process”, and that the credibility of the elections would be called into question if anything is found that calls the freeness or the fairness of the elections into question.
The lack of clarity on this issue was posed to the Chair of GECOM through its Public Relations Officer, Yolanda Ward. Up to press time, there was no response.
Most of the modalities of the recount are still to be sorted out. The Commission was expected to have a second meeting in the afternoon yesterday, after a request was tendered by Commissioner Robeson Benn for time to gather some document(s), according to Alexander. That meeting did not occur.