Court blocks CARICOM-supervised recount – High level team withdraws

Mar 18, 2020 News

---

“It is clear that there are forces that do not want to see the votes recounted for whatever reason. Any Government which is sworn in without a credible and fully transparent vote count process would lack legitimacy” – Chairman of CARICOM Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados

The CARICOM-supervised recount of ballots in the March 02, 2020 Regional and General Elections was blocked yesterday, when High Court Judge Franklyn Holder granted interim injunctions to prevent the Guyana Elections Commission from proceeding
The decision comes after an agreement for a national recount was reached by President David Granger, Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo and the CARICOM Secretariat.

The national recount was scheduled to take place under the supervision of an independent high level team from CARICOM. The team was scheduled to commence the recount of ballots from all ten regions on Monday. Their efforts were nonetheless met with several delays, as the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) mulled the legal implications of a national recount at this time. The team has since withdrawn, but was keen to emphasize that if their assistance is needed then they would return to Guyana.
The commission had announced yesterday that they were seeking legal guidance on the way forward. However there was no word on that advice when GECOM was served with the injunction to block the recount in the afternoon.
According to the document, Justice Holder granted an interim order blocking the Elections Commission from setting aside the declarations made by the ten electoral districts.

The document drafted on behalf of Ulita Moore, a private citizen, also seeks to restrain the Chief Elections Officer (CEO) of the Guyana Elections Commission, Keith Lowenfield, from preparing and submitting a report to the commission, except the votes counted and the information furnished by the Returning Officer under the Representation of the People Act.
The GECOM has also been restrained from permitting or authorizing any person or persons to any agreement between the President of Guyana and the Leader of the Opposition or any agreement between the Guyana Elections Commission and the Caribbean Community or at all, to count or recount any ballots cast by electors on the 2nd March 2020.
Among other things, the interim injunction restrains the GECOM from setting aside or varying the declarations already made by the 10 electoral districts with any other documents or declarations until the hearing and determination of the judicial review of the application.
Attorneys Roger Yearwood and Mayo Robertson are representing Ulita Moore.
The injunction is in force until the hearing and determination of the matter. The hearing is set to commence on Friday, March 20, 2020. The respondents to the Court matter are the Guyana Elections Commission, the Chairman of the Commission and the Chief Elections Officer.

Meanwhile, following the withdrawal of the aforementioned independent high- level team, CARICOM’s Chairman and Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, last evening issued a statement which reads as follows:
The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) deeply regrets that it has been forced to withdraw the independent High Level Team it fielded on Saturday, 14 March 2020, to supervise the re-counting of the ballots in Region 4 of the General and Regional Elections of 2 March 2020 in Guyana.
The fielding of the Team had been at the request of His Excellency David Granger, President of Guyana, on Saturday 14 March 2020. In response, and given the urgency of the task, the Team was mobilised immediately and arrived in Guyana in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Given that the tabulation process had been widely viewed as not being transparent or credible, President Granger and Mr. Bharrat Jagdeo, Leader of the Opposition, agreed that the only possible resolution was by way of a recount supervised by an independent team. This was seen as a significant contribution to bolstering the transparency and legitimacy of the electoral process.
This step forward had been anchored by an Aide Memoire signed by both leaders on 16 March 2020, and the Terms of Reference prepared by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to govern the role of the High Level Team on Sunday, 15 March 2020, for the supervision of the recounting of the ballots, not only in Region 4, but in all 10 electoral districts.
A court order issued on 17 March 2020, granted an injunction restraining GECOM from recounting any ballots of the General and Regional Elections of 2 March 2020, and set aside “any agreement between the President of Guyana and the Leader of the Opposition and or any agreement between the Guyana Elections Commission and the Caribbean Community”.
The Caribbean Community has no other choice but to withdraw the High Level Team.
It is clear that there are forces that do not want to see the votes recounted for whatever reason. Any Government which is sworn in without a credible and fully transparent vote count process would lack legitimacy.
I would like to thank the High Level Team for offering to serve at such short notice and for displaying the patience they have displayed over the last three days. The Team was led by Ms Francine Baron, former Attorney-General and Foreign Minister of Dominica, and included Mr Anthony Boatswain, former Minister of Finance of Grenada and Ms Cynthia Barrow-Giles, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government at the University of the West Indies. They were accompanied by Ms Angela Taylor and Ms Fern Narcis-Scope, the Chief Elections Officers of Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago.
As I said in an earlier statement it is critical that good sense prevail. The preservation of law and order is paramount and all parties must work hard to ensure that there is peace on the roads and in the communities across Guyana.
The Community remains committed to the people of Guyana.”

---

---