Granger must now instruct APNU/AFC GECOM Commissioners to do recount – PPP

The Opposition Peoples Progressive Party (PPP) has called for caretaker President David Granger to instruct his Commissioners at the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to support a full and transparent recount of the votes.
This in light of a decision of the Full Court handed down on Monday, which discharged injunctions against the electoral body from going ahead with a recount.

Keep commitment
The PPP, in issuing its demand on Wednesday, reminded that it was Granger who requested the Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) Chair, Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Motley, to field a high-level team to supervise a national recount.
The agreement brokered by Motley had been signed onto by the major stakeholders: caretaker President David Granger, Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo, and Chairperson of the Guyana Elections Commission, Justice (retd) Claudette Singh.
The PPP, in its missive, recalled that it was also Granger “who said repeatedly that he will abide by the ruling of the courts.”
The Full Court subsequently, on Tuesday, upheld an appeal filed by Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo, challenging an earlier decision by Justice Franklyn Holder to hear a case brought by A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU) candidate Ulita Grace Moore.
Moore’s course of litigation had sought to prevent a countrywide recount of the votes cast in the General and Regional Elections of March 2.
Following the ruling, the PPP has since called on GECOM Chairperson Claudette Singh to keep her public commitment to a full and transparent recount of the ballots.
The formal demand by the party comes on the heels of similar sentiments expressed by the PPP’s former Attorney General, Anil Nandlall, following the Full Court’s ruling.
He was one of the attorneys for Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo, who successfully appealed the decision by Justice Franklyn Holder.
According to Nandlall, the GECOM Chairperson, retired Justice Claudette Singh, has already indicated that a recount, already decided upon by the Commission, will now be carried out, “and that political parties will be allowed to participate fairly and observe that recount.”

Optimism
Nandlall used the occasion to express optimism at the return of the Caricom team of observers led by Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley, in addition to the international observers, “to ensure that the recount is done in accordance with law and in a transparent manner, to remove all doubts and all suspicious from the process, so that in the end we will have declared the real results of these elections as expressed by the electorate.”
The PPP, meanwhile, said it “remains steadfast in our resolve to resist legally, every attempt by the incumbent administration to perpetrate electoral fraud, erode our democracy, and return Guyana to a dictatorship.”

Another plot
The parry has since also warned of another plot, where senior APNU/AFC leaders are instigating a scheme aimed at agitating persons into demanding that President David Granger be sworn in based on the fraudulent elections’ results.
Several of the party’s senior members could be seen posting on social media platforms phrases such as “swear in granger, who vex, vex”.
The party said the recent rulings have now paved the way for the full recount to arrive at credible and transparent results of the elections; “However, the APNU/AFC, in its attempts to steal political power, has now launched a whisper campaign.”
The PPP also said that it has received information that these elements convened meetings with members and officials of the coalition, where discussions were held and hard copies of an online petition calling for the swearing-in of Granger were distributed.