President David Granger on Thursday indicated he will accept whatever results are declared by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), saying his acceptance of the declaration is not conditional on whether it goes in his favour or not.
Granger’s APNU+AFC Coalition has used the courts to try to get GECOM to declare results other than the recount figures which show the Opposition People’s Progressive Party (PPP) has won.
But Granger appeared to take a less confrontational approach on Thursday though he did not explicitly concede defeat.
When asked specifically what his position will be if GECOM declares the results of the election using votes he considers to be invalid, the President said: “With respect, my statements on compliance with the declaration wasn’t conditional, I didn’t say if the rain is falling or the sun is shining, you know, if it comes by day or by night, I am obliged to observe the declaration of the Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission,” Granger told reporters at the sidelines of the opening of the new COVID-19 Hospital at Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara.
The President in the past committed to accepting the national vote recount figures which show the PPP winning the elections by over 15,000 votes but agents of Granger have moved to the court to block GECOM from using the figures.
This country’s highest court – the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) – on July 8 ruled that votes already counted during the national recount of votes are valid and should form the basis of a declaration of a winner.
“Unless and until an election court decides otherwise, the votes already counted by the recount process as valid votes are incapable of being declared invalid by any person or authority,” Section 24 of the CCJ’s Summary Judgment reads.
Those votes counted as valid and certified by all parties show the Coalition lost the elections by over 24,000 votes.
The recount has been certified by all parties and approved by a CARICOM high-level team, which the President said was “the most legitimate interlocutor”.
Local and international stakeholders have collectively called for the recount results to be used as the basis for a declaration, and just as the GECOM Chair made her request to the Chief Elections Officer (CEO) for a final report reflecting those results, the APNU+AFC moved to the court to block the declaration.
APNU+AFC is seeking to have the court approve the use of 10 regional declarations which handed it a victory based on fraudulent numbers.
In late June and early July, the party also attempted to secure a victory based on two attempts by the CEO to unlawfully disenfranchise 275,000 and 115,000 voters, respectively.
