Guyana Elections Commission Chair Re-Invites CARICOM To Validate Election Ballot Recount

GEORGETOWN, Guyana , April 15, 2020 (CMC) – The Chairperson of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), former Justice Claudette Singh, has written the Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Ambassador Irwin LaRocque, to request the presence of, and ascertain CARICOM’s willingness to have its high-level team return to Guyana, during the execution of a national recount of all the votes cast, in the March 2 election.

During a meeting, yesterday, Singh informed GECOM’s six Commissioners that a letter had been dispatched to the CARICOM Secretariat.

Official communication was made with CARICOM, in light of the April 6 decision of GECOM, that it would be prudent to have the regional body involved in the planned national recount – not to supervise, as previously approved, but to validate the process.

Coalition government-appointed Commissioner, Vincent Alexander, and PPP-C-appointed Commissioner, Sase Gunraj, in disclosing that GECOM has officially communicated with CARICOM, agreed that the presence of a high-level CARICOM team would be different from that of a regular Elections Observation Mission (EOM).

According to the Guyana Chronicle, GECOM’s Public Relations Officer (PRO), Yolanda Ward, confirmed the position, taken by the Elections Commission.

“The Commission felt that CARICOM’s presence will lend to a greater level of transparency in the process,” she is quoted as saying.

She added that CARICOM will not operate as an EOM: “They will be more integral in the process than what a regular observer is required to do. Their presence in the process is not just as mere observers.”