GECOM Chair summons political parties to meeting

Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Justice (rt’d) Claudette Singh has invited all political parties to attend a “briefing” on Saturday at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre as the GECOM Secretariat gears up for a recount of all votes cast on March 2, 2020.

In an email sent to all the parties that contested the general and regional elections, the GECOM Chairman said the briefing will deal with the “recount process.”

At this meeting, Presidential Candidate of The Citizenship Initiative (TCI) Rondha Lam will be advocating for all political parties to sign an agreement committing to accepting the results of the recount.

“I would push for every single party to sign onto it that whatever the results are, that is the results. Let the chips fall where they may and we need to move on…,” Lam told the News Room Friday.

“…because if this isn’t accepted, what we’re going to have to go to is fresh elections or we’re going to get a rush to [use] the old declaration and we’re going to get a Government and that is going to be a madhouse,” she added.

The two major political parties –the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) and the A Partnership for National Unit + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) –have both stated that they won the elections.

The TCI Presidential Candidate believes neither of those parties will be willing to accept defeat following the recount.

“The problem we’re going to have is whichever side loses when this recount is done, the other side will never accept it.”

Lam pointed out that Guyana continues to battle the COVID-19 pandemic and the lack of a legitimate Government is hindering the country’s potential to effectively fight the disease.

“We’re already in the middle of a pandemic and we have a situation whereby the longer we don’t have a sitting Government, the worse it is for us…”

The Presidential Candidate also plans to convince the GECOM Chairman to televise the recount in order to ensure transparency of the process.

The Commission previously voted against a motion calling for the recount to be live streamed.

There are 2, 339 ballot boxes which must be counted from all ten Electoral Districts.

General and regional elections were held on March 02. The recount is expected to lead to the final declaration of the results and a winner which will form the new Government.

The recount will be scrutinised by a three-member CARICOM team and will be observed by foreign missions here.

A date for the recount will be announced once the CARICOM team arrives on Friday.