GECOM continues deliberations today

Jun 16, 2020 News

By Shikema Dey

The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) is set to continue discussions today, after failing to arrive at a conclusion with respect to the declaration of the victors of the March 2, 2020 Elections at their Monday meeting.
The six-member Commission along with the GECOM Chair, Ret’d Justice Claudette Singh, met at the Commission Headquarters in Kingston to deliberate on the Chief Elections Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield’s report along with the report from the CARICOM Scrutinizing Team as mandated by the Gazetted Order.
After its conclusion, Commissioner Sase Gunraj declined to address the media, citing that, “At this point, I will prefer to refrain from comment until the discussions move a bit further on.”
Meanwhile, Commissioner Vincent Alexander noted that there were no “in depth” discussions on the report by the CEO or the CARICOM report, but he sought “clarification” on key issues emerging from the electoral process.
Further, when asked to provide an outline of the discussions, Alexander stated that “The meeting sought to commence discussions on the report from the CEO. I think in the first instance we had to get to the point of determining whether or not, the observation reports would be discussed, and there were those who sought to contend we needed to cut to the chase and simply give effect to the tabulation.”
Among those issues were the allegations of dead and migrant voters, raised by the APNU+AFC Coalition throughout the national recount process. The Coalition did not, however, provide substantial evidence to support their claims.
Alexander, however, said that the Commission was provided with “evidence” by the Secretariat to verify that those claims. “The Secretariat has now provided us with documentation to show that they have in fact gotten verification in relation to deaths and migrations,” he said.
That verification he said confirmed “that there are persons who have migrated who have been verified by the Chief Immigration Officer (CIO) as not being in the country at the time of elections but votes were cast in their name. Similarly, persons who have died, and votes have been cast in their name.”
Off the top of his head, Alexander said the Commission is in receipt of 47 names with respect to the dead voters and over 500 names of migrant voters.
It should be noted that the GECOM Chair, had tasked the party with providing evidence to back up allegations. In fact, she stated in plain terms that “he who asserts must prove.”
However, shortly after, it was the GECOM Chair herself who wrote to the Immigration Officer seeking confirmation of a list of 207 names sent to by the Coalition. In response, head of the immigration office, Police Commissioner Leslie James sent a list containing 172 names of persons which he said were out of the jurisdiction on E-day and could not cast their ballot. The Coalition also sent another list containing 301 names of persons they claimed were out of the jurisdiction. From both lists, over 24 persons have come forward to debunk the Coalition’s claims.
When asked whether these anomalies are significant enough to impact the will of the people, Alexander answered “We are not yet complete in the process of the question of the will of the people. We still have issues; I still have issues with respect to the 81 persons in Sophia whose ballots were not counted, it is still a tremendous difficulty for me, the 47 boxes from the East Coast for which there was absolutely no documentation so one has to be rather holistic.”
The Commission, according to the Gazetted Order is expected to make a declaration today. Asked whether the Nation can expect the results today, Alexander stated that “In this week, there will be a final pronouncement that may include a declaration.”

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