A total recount, it must be.

Apr 15, 2020 Editorial

First, many wanted a recount, now some have no use for a total recount. Then, it was announced by GECOM that a staggering 156 days were required to conduct and complete the process. As if there was anticipation of just such a development and waiting in the wings, out came the prompt counter of 10 days only. Which of these makes sense, what should it be, what do we really want from Elections 2020 when the dust settles at the end of all of this?
The atmosphere and airwaves have been bombarded with a profusion of calls – steely, unmoving demands, in effect – that insisted there be a transparent recount leading to a credible outcome, which could be acceptable by all. It is why, therefore, we cannot understand why there is objection and resistance to the reality of a total recount, since this makes so much sense.
There should be no fear in any quarter, once there was no dabbling, no dirty hands with telltale fingerprints that point, not at the competition only, but at self, too. It is why we say let us go to a full recount and let the chips fall where they will.
It is not supportable, this height of unwisdom, to engage in a partial process, which would be sure to leave so many suspicions and questions unexamined, unanswered, and unsolved. It is not the pathway to anything that brings one part under the needle of the microscope and the glare of light, while leaving a substantial part untouched, hanging in the troubled darkness. A total recount, it must be.
On a related note, a proposal has been tabled to have the auditors (public and/or private) serve as the leaders in any recount process finalized. On the surface of it, this sounds fair and reasonable and practical, which all make for perfect sense. That is, until there is remembrance that this is Guyana, and what that means in the grimness and grittiness of our unraveling societal perceptions, our disturbing national realities.
Because this country is so delicately poised, and this stage of an unending electoral season is so piercingly sensitive, all, including Guyanese auditors are presumed, rightly or wrongly, to possess a built-in bias that would prejudice the outcome to the advantage or detriment of one side. As incredible as this may sound to the outside world, there is some basis for such positions, and which rule them out of contention. It is the way we are, the labyrinth that we have weaved for ourselves and which now imprisons us. We are that lost, that many bridges too far.
Since we have a favourable predisposition to foreigners and their unsullied integrity, that not unsound proposal about auditors would be best filled by one of the big accounting firms that survived the financial debacles of the internet bubble and the interconnected crises that began at the turn of this century. To cut a real fine point on this, they would see what needs to be seen, scope out the entire (entire) territory and then get down to the brass tacks of an actual count, which must be total.
Now we come to this crossroad about number of days needed for this to be efficiently and thoroughly completed. Clearly, there are no electoral roads remaining in this country that travel in a straight line. But here we are juggling 156 versus 10. The former is definitely out, and this is what we say without hesitation, for it flies in the face of the reasonable, represents the length of impracticality.
In the next instance, while the much smaller number embodied in the latter appears to be more feasible, we see it as attempting to force a hard nutshell into a tinier, more rigid straitjacket. Something has to give, is sure to crack under the enormous pressures at work, be they of urgency, of controversy, or of heavy-duty inflexibility.
This is why we urge, let us take the greatest of care, so not start out on the wrong foot (too many or too few days) from the wrong bases (partial recount) and hurtle towards the wrong results (found unacceptable by some side). This is our last chance to get this right.

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A total recount, it must be.

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A total recount, it must be.

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