Has “every confidence” in recount report of Caricom Mission – Secty General

Guyana elections recount

…report states election reflects “will of the people”

Secretary General of the Caribbean Community (Caricom), Ambassador Irwin LaRocque expressed gratitude on behalf of the regional bloc to the electoral observation team that was mounted to Guyana to oversee the National Recount of ballots cast in the March 2 polls, saying, “I have every confidence in the work they have produced”.

Ambassador LaRocque was at the time delivering remarks at the 20th Special Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of Caricom which was held virtually earlier on Friday.
“I want to take this opportunity to thank the independent Caricom Observer Team to the recount of the Guyana General and Regional Elections, for their personal sacrifice to answer the call to service. The team was in Guyana, by invitation, and willingly spent 46 days during the pandemic. I have every confidence in the work they have produced,” the Caricom SG told regional heads.
The Secretary General explained that over the past six months, the region was faced with many challenges, including having to deal with the ongoing electoral crisis in Guyana, “as we sought to maintain the reputation of the Community as a bastion of democracy”.
He reminded that five Prime Ministers, one-third of the leadership of the Caribbean Community, visited Guyana, to hold talks with the political leadership in an effort to resolve the electoral crisis and to ensure that democracy prevailed in the end.
Ambassador LaRocque had received the report of the Caricom Observer Team on June 15, 2020. The team was led by Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Cynthia Barrow-Giles, and included Commissioner of the Antigua and Barbuda Electoral Commission, John Jarvis, and Deputy Supervisor of Elections of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Sylvester King.
The regional bloc has been very firm in its stance for the results of the National Recount to be used as the basis by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) for the declaration of a winner.

Caricom will not tolerate
New Caricom Chair, Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves had made it clear that Caricom will not tolerate the setting aside of the recount results.
“I am satisfied that Caricom will not stand by idly and watch the recount which was properly done for the results to be set aside,” Gonsalves had said during a recent NBC Radio programme.
“When you take part in an election, there is always a chance that you will lose, and if you lose, like sir Arthur [Lewis] said: ‘Take your licks like a man’,” the Caricom Chair had remarked.
The recount exercise shows that the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) won the elections, garnering a total of 233,336 votes – a difference of 15,416 over its main political rival, the incumbent A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) coalition.

Brilliant leadership
Meanwhile, also on Friday, during his address, Gonsalves praised the work of his colleague outgoing Prime Minister, Mia Mottley, for her “brilliant leadership”, more particularly, her efforts in attempting to resolve the political impasse in Guyana.
Mottley had stated that Caricom expects the results of the elections to be declared on the basis of the National Recount.
She had also expressed concern over Chief Elections Officer, Keith Lowenfield’s attempt to discard over 115,000 valid votes and hand a “victory” to the APNU/AFC in spite of the recount results showing that the PPP/C has won the elections.
The Caricom observer team in its final report said that there was nothing emanating from the recount activity that thwarted the will of the people who cast their ballots at the 2020 General and Regional Elections
“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 report stated.