BREAKING NEWS! GECOM Chair suspends tabulation of Reg. 4 votes

Mar 12, 2020 News

Chair of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Justice (ret’d) Claudette Singh has
suspended the tabulation of votes from the Region 4 district. This suspension has occurred
in an effort to clarify the ruling by Chief Justice, Roxane George-Wiltshire.
On Wednesday, the Chief Justice issued an order for the Returning Officer (RO) for
District Four, Clairmont Mingo, to return to the legally prescribed procedure for tabulating
the votes for region four after she deemed the previously declaration to be unlawful on the
grounds that the tabulation used to arrive at it was in breach of the law.
However when the process restarted on Thursday morning, the RO sought out to use a
spreadsheet, which was objected to by all political parties, except the APNU+AFC
coalition.
Opposition- appointed commissioner, Sase Gunraj, said that, “The RO, Mingo, is refusing
to use or present Statements of Poll to ascertain the total number of votes cast in favour of
each contesting party. He is instead attempting to use a spreadsheet, which is a clear
breach of the tenets of Sec 84(1) of the Representation of the People Act, Cap 3:01.
The CJ handed down a consequential order that in interest of transparency, but taking into
consideration the need for urgency, the RO is to decide whether the process of ascertaining
the total number of votes cast in favor of each list in the district by adding up the votes
recorded in favor of the list in accordance with the Statement of Polls delivered, should be
restarted or continued.

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