Administrative defects not grievously deficient to thwart the will of the people – Caricom Report

The administrative defects that were discovered during the national elections recount of votes cast at the March 2, 2020 polls were not grievously deficient so as to deem the results not to be credible. This view was expressed by the seasoned Caricom observer team who in their report submitted to the Guyana Elections Commission Chair, Retired Justice Claudette Singh, concluded that despite some administrative failings the March 2 polls were credible, and attempts to say otherwise were outrightly rejected. The report was submitted on June 15.

According to the Caricom observation team, overall, “while we acknowledge that there were some defects in the recount of the March 02, 2020 votes cast for the General and Regional Elections in Guyana, the team did not witness anything which would render the recount, and by extension, the casting of the ballot on March 02, so grievously deficient procedurally or technically, (despite some irregularities), or sufficiently deficient to have thwarted the will of the people and consequently preventing the election results and its declaration by GECOM from reflecting the will of the voters.”
The high-level Caricom Electoral Observer Team, deemed “the most legitimate interlocutors” in Guyana’s elections standoff, has concluded that the results were credible, acceptable, and should be the basis from which the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) declares the final results.
The team comprised Deputy Supervisor of Elections of St Vincent and the Grenadines Sylvester King; Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Cynthia Barrow-Giles, and Commissioner of the Antigua and Barbuda Electoral Commission John Jarvis.
Barrow-Giles, who led the team, noted, “…the recount results are acceptable and should constitute the basis of the declaration of results of the March 02, 2020 elections.”

Will of the people
At every election, people go to the polls to express their choice. This activity is coined as expressing one’s will, and what was clear on March 2, 2020, was that thousands of Guyanese went to the polls to express their will.
The will of the people, according to the figures coming out of the recount, shows an overwhelming victory for the People’s Progressive Party/Civic. The PPP/C secured a victory with 233,336 votes cast in its favour, while the APNU/AFC scraped 217,920 votes. For the new parties, the numbers are as follows: A New and United Guyana – 2313; Change Guyana – 1953; Liberty and Justice Party – 2657; People’s Republic Party – 889; The Citizenship Initiative – 680; The New Movement – 244; and the United Republican Party – 360.
Those numbers are reflective of the will of the people, and the Caricom team endorses this as being the figures to proceed with. The report added that there are obvious lessons to be learnt from this experience which, going forward, the Government and the people of Guyana must make every effort to rectify in the best interest of democratic governance.
“Many of the instances of irregularities that we witnessed can be explained by either the incompetence of some of the Presiding Officers at the Polling Stations on March 02, 2020, and/or the failure to give adequate training by GECOM to its staff on the varied possibilities which may have arisen at the level of the individual stations,” the report concluded.

Most legitimate interlocutors
Ever since Permanent Representative of Barbados to the Organisation of American States (OAS), Ambassador Noel Lynch on behalf of the Caricom Group during a meeting of the OAS Permanent Council back in May said Caricom was “the most legitimate interlocutors” in Guyana’s National Recount, the APNU/AFC supporters have been parroting that statement.
It was repeated several times by caretaker President David Granger.
In a letter to United States Ambassador to Guyana, Sarah-Ann Lynch, on May 15, Granger said “The Caribbean Community remains “…the most legitimate interlocutors in the Guyana situation” and that Guyana, equally, is confident in the legitimacy, credibility, and competence of the Caricom team to perform its task.
That was in response to the Ambassador’s request to have special arrangements for The Carter Center’s return to Guyana to observe the recount.
In another letter to the United States Congress, Granger again stated: “The Government of Guyana wishes to inform you that the Caribbean Community did send a new team, which is actually at work with the Elections Commission. The Caribbean Community sees itself as “…the most legitimate interlocutors in the Guyana situation” and Guyana, equally, is confident in the legitimacy, credibility, and competence of the CARICOM Team to perform its task.”
The recount now proves that the David Granger-led APNU/AFC was involved in some collusion with Region Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo to thwart the will of the people in favour of APNU/AFC. It is a fact that Mingo manipulated the results of his District – the largest – to give the coalition the victory it wanted. He did so not once, but two times. Mingo inflated the coalition’s votes by 19,116 votes, while deducting 3689 votes from the PPP/C. Neither the caretaker President nor his party has, to date, addressed Mingo’s glaring anomalies. Ironically, the APNU/AFC has been claiming victory, and that has been based on Mingo’s concocted numbers.