“A weight has been lifted off the nation’s shoulders” – GECOM Commissioner

…as APNU/AFC’s last-ditch attempt to annul elections defeated

With the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Chairperson, retired Justice Claudette Singh, making a landmark decision to have the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) declared winners of the General and Regional elections, the decision is being compared to a weight having been lifted off the nation’s shoulders.

Making this comparison was PPP-nominated Commissioner Sase Gunraj in an interview with the media outside GECOM on Tuesday, and it comes after the nation had waited for more than three-and-a-half months for a credible winner of the March 2 General and Regional Elections to be announced.
“I have no doubt that a weight has been lifted off the shoulders of all Guyanese,” Gunraj told media operatives.
After deliberations on Tuesday by the seven-member Commission, Justice Singh instructed Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield to prepare his report under Section 96 of the Representation of the People Act, Chapter 1:03, and in keeping with Order No. 60 of 2020 and its addendum dated 29th May, 2020.
The data generated from the National Recount show the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) won the elections with a total of 233,336 votes. This is 15,416 more votes than its nearest rival the APNU/AFC, which received 217,920 total votes.
Addressing the issue of set timelines, Gunraj responded, “In 2015, a declaration of Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica), which was the last region, was done on Friday, and by noon on Saturday, a meeting was called, at which a report of the CEO was presented. That meeting lasted 15 minutes, and at 02:00pm that afternoon, there was a swearing in of the President.”
The commissioner added that he expects the same alacrity to be applied now.

Not a court

Gunraj reiterated the decisions by Justice Singh, in which she ruled that GECOM does not have the powers of a Court of Law: to examine and re-examine witnesses, or to procure official documents to determine the truth of the allegations contained therein.
In her ruling, the GECOM Chair cited Article 163 (1) (b) of the Constitution, which confers on the High Court the exclusive jurisdiction to determine the validity of an election.
Justice Singh also noted that the Commission cannot arrogate to itself a jurisdiction to annul an election, since no specific power was conferred on it under Article 162 (1) (b).
She cited Articles 162 and 163 of the Constitution, which show that the Articles clearly and sharply separate the respective functions of GECOM and the High Court in matters of electoral process.
Meanwhile, Gunraj also commended the CARICOM Observer Team for the manner in which they carried out their mandate.
“These are persons who executed their mandate with dispatch, with diligence, and at a time when we were facing and continue to face a pandemic. They have done extremely well, and I believe the people of Guyana owe to those persons, and by extension CARICOM, a debt of gratitude,” he said.

Efforts to annul
Gunraj also disclosed that during the Commission’s deliberations on Tuesday, APNU/AFC Commissioners Vincent Alexander, Charles Corbin and Desmond Trotman had made a last-ditch attempt to have the elections annulled.
The Government-nominated commissioners presented a proposal for the elections to be nullified and for there to be fresh elections, based on APNU/AFC’s claims of irregularities. The PPP/C-nominated Commissioners, on the other hand, presented arguments in favour of using the results generated from the National Recount as the basis for making an official declaration.
Meanwhile, the three APNU/AFC-aligned commissioners have expressed disappointment in the decision, and sought to justify their attempts to have the elections scrapped.
However, Guyana has a long history of political parties who were dissatisfied with an election result filing an election petition in court.
When the three commissioners were asked if there is any record of GECOM ever determining the credibility of an election instead of a court, Alexander admitted that there is no precedent for GECOM to do so.