Carter Center lauds Caricom’s report on elections recount

…reiterates need for constitutional reform

The United States-based Carter Center has welcomed the submission of a report to the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) by the team of scrutineers fielded by the Caribbean Community (Caricom).

That report says the results from the National Recount exercise are acceptable and provide the basis for a declaration of results from the March 2, 2020 General and Regional elections.
In a brief statement on Tuesday, The Carter Center commended GECOM for completing the 34-day recount of the votes cast at the March elections.
Reiterating its disappointment that it was not allowed to return to Guyana to directly observe the recount, the Center said it is “encouraged by Caricom’s largely positive report on the recount process.”
The US-based organisation had previously stated that while electoral preparations and voting and counting procedures had met international standards, the March tabulation process for Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) – Guyana’s largest voting district – had generated results that were deemed not credible, not just by the Carter Center, but also by other international and domestic observers.

Nevertheless, the missive further stated: “Going forward, The Carter Center calls on all Guyanese to prioritise efforts to strengthen Guyana’s democratic institutions, and advance constitutional reforms to move beyond the winner-takes-all system.”
The Carter Center, which had fielded a team of observers to monitor Guyana’s elections over three months ago, was blocked from returning to the country to observe the recount as a result of the closure of the airports here due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The David Granger-led incumbent administration had rejected two requests from the Center to return, saying it relies on the Caricom team as the most “legitimate interlocutor” in the recount process.
The National Recount has shown that Opposition People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) winning the elections with a landslide victory of some 15,416 votes more than the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Coalition. The PPP/C garnered a total of 233,336 votes, while the APNU/AFC secured 217,920 votes.
In its report to the GECOM Chair, (ret’d) Justice Claudette Singh, on Tuesday, the Caricom Team said, “Despite our concerns, nothing that we witnessed, warrants a challenge to the inescapable conclusion that the recount results are acceptable and should constitute the basis of the declaration of the results of the March 02, 2020 elections. Any aggrieved political party has been afforded the right to seek redress before the courts in an elections petition.”
The report went on to say that despite some of its administrative failings and minor flaws, “…the Team categorically rejects the concerted public efforts to discredit the 2020 polls, up to the disastrous Region 4 tabulation.”
Another section of the report reads, “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 actual count of the vote was indeed transparent.”
The three-member high-level Caricom Team was present here for the entire 34-day recount exercise – with the permission of the GECOM Chair – following an agreement by caretaker President David Granger and Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo.
The team of scrutineers comprised: Commissioner of the Antigua and Barbuda Electoral Commission, John Jarvis; Deputy Supervisor of Elections of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Sylvester King; and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Cynthia Barrow-Giles.