Elections 2020 – Day 50 Recount start date depends on CARICOM team’s arrival

Apr 22, 2020 News

The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) is expected to announce a start date for the national recount soon, which will depend on the arrival of the CARICOM high level team. The team will be granted a special role in validating the credibility of the recount. This has been deemed to be necessary, since the controversial tabulation processes for Region Four by Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo, caused a considerable breakdown of public trust in GECOM.

CARICOM’s high level delegation (from left): Angela Taylor, Chief Electoral Officer, Barbados; Anthony Boatswain, former Finance Minister, Grenada; Francine Baron, Chair of the Team and former Attorney General and Foreign Minister, Dominica; Fern Nacis-Scope, Chief Elections Officer, Trinidad and Tobago; Cynthia Barrow-Giles, Senior Lecturer, Department of Government, UWI. (Photo Credit: CARICOM)

GECOM confirmed reports yesterday that state-imposed quarantine of the officials of the team will not be necessary once they subject themselves to testing, either in their home country or when they arrive in Guyana.
They have to undergo World Health Organisation (WHO) approved PCR (polymerase chain reaction) COVID-19. If they are tested in Guyana, they will be required to self-quarantine for 48 hours while the results are being ascertained.
According to GECOM, the President, who intervened to lift the requirement for a state-imposed quarantined, insisted that “nothing should be done, or appears to be done, that could delay the start of the recount process”.
The GECOM Chair, (ret’d) Justice Claudette Singh SC, said on Monday that the recount could start in a matter of days.
Responding to criticisms, the Chair said that she is the one who made the commitment to have the recount, and that she is committed to ensuring its swift execution.
Commissioner Vincent Alexander had said that there will be drafted an order for the recount, likely to indicate that it will begin by the CARICOM team’s arrival.
GECOM is set to work with 10 counting stations, after technical experts from the Ministry of Public Health examined the spaces at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre and determined that number would be in-keeping with the pandemic guidelines.
The Commission had decided that the stations will be separated in two teams, with one starting a count of Region Four and the other counting the remaining Regions in numerical order.
GECOM expects to work for 10 hours every day from 8am to 6pm.
The average time to be taken per ballot box has not been ascertained. GECOM is expected to use the first day as a litmus test to determine how long each ballot box will take to examine, Until then, it will be difficult to predict just how long the recount will take.

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