No decision yet on extension of vote recount
-85 more ballot boxes completed
With one week left in its original 25-day timetable for the recount of votes from the March 2 polls, the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) still has 1,290 ballot boxes to count, an impossible endeavour in the remaining time.
However, its members remained silent on the way forward yesterday even after a meeting was held yesterday.
Yesterday saw the recount of 85 ballot boxes, for an 18-day total of 1,049 of the 2,339 boxes used on elections day.
The public has not been updated on the results of GECOM’s request for two more work stations at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre (ACCC) nor on the new deadline. Queries on these matters to Commissioners and GECOM Public Relations Officer Yolanda Ward went unanswered.
Ward did, however, disclose yesterday that of the 85, a total of 16 boxes were counted from District Three, 23 from District Four, 15 from District Five, 20 from District Six and 11 from District Seven. She added that 999 Statements of Recount from the general elections and 1015 from the regional elections have been tabulated.
Meanwhile, the two main contestants continued to publicly debate the relevance of alleged irregularities uncovered during the recount process.
Last evening People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) agent Anil Nandlall took exception to reports that GECOM Chairperson Justice (ret’d) Claudette Singh had called on the incumbent to provide evidence in support of these allegations.
“This is a recount… We cannot allow the process to be bastardised and used for a purpose it was not conceived to do,” Nandlall told media workers outside the ACCC.
He stressed that neither the recount order not the Constitution has granted GECOM the power to hear and determine allegations. That power, he argued, remains solely vested in the judiciary.
“A recount is done in accordance with legal rules set out in the Representation of the People Act. Nowhere is there provision for someone to make allegations of the type being made and worse yet for there to be some proving and disproving of these allegations,” he argued.
He repeatedly stressed that his party has nothing to hide but noted that the exercise is a recount, the scope of which GECOM cannot exceed. Allegations of this sort, he noted, must be dealt with according to rules of evidence in a court of law with a particular standard of proof.
“GECOM would be exceeding its jurisdiction, GECOM would be acting without jurisdiction, GECOM would be acting ultra vires and GECOM would be violating the very Order GECOM published…GECOM’s jurisdiction under the constitution is to conduct an election… to do all things in connection with that process which includes recounting if the occasion arises… GECOM cannot convert itself into a court and hold a trial to investigate allegations,” Nandlall said.
He specifically referenced Article 163 of the constitution which grants the High Court exclusive jurisdiction to determine either generally or in any particular place whether an election has been lawfully conducted or the result thereof has been, or may have been, affected by any unlawful act or omission.
“The constitution did not invest in GECOM the power to investigate allegations or hear allegations, to prove and not to prove allegations of the type being made,” the attorney stressed, before adding that his party will be writing to the Chair to inform her of their concerns on this matter.