After a full day of going through the “minutiae” of the proposed work-plan, the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has still not finalized the timeline for the National Recount of votes from the March 2nd polls instead it will meet again today to settle this and the Order which will govern the process.
“It was a very lengthy meeting reflective of the way in which at GECOM we waste time…we spent the entire day going back to dot Is and cross Ts and I would not be surprised if tomorrow we go back to the work plan and rehash the same issues,” government-appointed commissioner Vincent Alexander told reporters.
According to Alexander, the majority of the meeting was spent going through the work plan for possibly the third time with Commissioners returning to issues previously settled in an attempt to change decisions which did not go in their favour.
One such decision he explained related to the number of workstations which would be used during the recount process. GECOM Chair Claudette Singh last Friday decided that there would be no more than 10 stations used for the tabulation of votes.
Following this decision a team from the Ministry of Public Health visited the Arthur Chung Convention Centre where the recount will take place and recommended 10 stations. Eight of these stations have been approved to accommodate 14 persons while two have been approved to accommodate 10.
Public Relations Officer of GECOM Yolanda Ward told reporters that the Team gave a list of 14 guidelines to be followed including that all rooms must have a table at the entrance and exit with disposable face masks, hand sanitizers, disposable gloves, hand tissue and foot pressed-type rubbish bins with garbage bags.
Additionally staff are expected to wash hands every 20-25 minutes; persons must be 3-6 feet apart from each other; disposable/surgical masks should be changed every 30-60 minutes, and persons entering and exiting the building at all points of entry must have their hands sanitized so that they do not bring nor take out any potential infectious substance.
Alexander said that despite these issues being settled they were resurrected by a commissioner whom he declined to name.
“There is one commissioner who wants us to listen to him say that he has individual advice that overrides the advice of the persons duly authorised to give advice. [He] would be bringing this matter back to us to understand that even if a decision has been made it was not the right and correct decision. This is the kind of useless engagement we are involved in,” he lamented.
Other matters resurrected include the questions of the number of GECOM workers at each workstation and the way in which results at the workstations would be displayed via Statement of Recount or via a cumulative display.
Alexander maintained that the plan was finalized except for the duration of the entire process since the amount of time needed to count a single box remains unknown.
He reminded that the duration of the process relies on the variables of number of workstations, length of workday and the amount of time it is likely to take to count and reconcile a single ballot box.
Simulation
Alexander has proposed that the first day of the recount be used as a “simulation” to allow the Commission to ascertain the actual time it takes to work a box and thereby gauge the rapidity of the work.
If this proposal is accepted the Commission will be going into an open-ended process, though the possibility of an amendment remains.
Opposition-nominated Commissioner Sase Gunraj told reporters yesterday that he is vehemently opposed to an “open-ended process” which he contends would be unfair to all concerns.
“I am pushing to have a duration fixed for this process…the discussion is that the duration cannot be determined but I believe that if we set a duration and take steps to fit within that duration we cannot have progress but if we leave it open ended there is possibility for delay,” he explained.
He noted that based on the parameters being set by a member of the commission the process runs into over a month.
“That is unacceptable. We owe better to this nation…we need to set a definite period during which this process will be concluded and tackle all necessary step to conclude it in that time
He reiterated that he disagreed that the COVID-19 taskforce had the authority to dictate the number of hours during which the recount can occur and specifically disagreed with the 10-hour work day, 8 am to 6 pm, recommended by the Taskforce.
Additionally, Gunraj argued that the time to recount and reconcile one box can be reduced.
“Those two alone should reduce the number of days,” he stressed.
In total the Commission has undertaken to complete the work plan and Order today including a projected timeline for the process and a methodology including whether or not the process would be televised or live streamed and whether Returning Offi-cers such as Clairmont Mingo would have a role in the recount process.
“The Chairman has said that some of the officers are statutory officers and she is disinclined to remove them at this time. I disagree with this position,” Gunraj said.
Mingo has been accused of producing fictitious declarations for District Four on two separate occasions and the last one was accepted by the Chief Election Officer Keith Lowenfield and used in the submission of final results to GECOM for declaration. GECOM Chair Singh has rejected this report.
Singh is increasingly being blamed for not managing the election process properly and causing a seven-week delay in the declaration of the final result.
In the meanwhile Wes-tern countries and international observer missions have declared that Mingo’s tabulation for District Four had no credibility. Western countries in particular have warned that any swearing in of a President on these results will not be credible.
Senior officials of GECOM are under suspicion of taking part in an ongoing process to rig the elections in favour of incumbent President, David Granger.
