GHRA calls on GECOM Chair to proceed with recount
The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) is calling on the Chairperson of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to urgently recount the votes cast in Region 4 and end the pain, shame and embarrassment Guyanese are now facing over the March 2nd general elections.
In a statement released yesterday the GHRA argues that the Chair, retired Justice Claudette Singh must act now as she holds the future of Guyana in her hands.
“It is no longer a question of what she wants to do but what she must do – NOW!,” the statement stressed adding that Chief Justice Roxane George has already provided a legal cover for completing the tabulation of votes of Region 4 in a transparent manner.
The “legal cover” referenced is likely to be the undertaking given by Singh and accepted by Justice George to have a recount.
GECOM has publicly stated that since the matter of a recount remains sub judice they will await the Court’s ruling before performing any action. Singh has however told the court that her undertaking to facilitate a recount should not have been injuncted by the court.
“The undertaking was accepted by a court of competent jurisdiction and as such can be likened to an order of court. This court having concurrent jurisdiction cannot set it aside, only an Appellate Court can,” she contended in her affidavit tendered to Justice Franklyn Holder.
The GHRA has gone so far as to state that as the Chairperson of GECOM, Singh does not require the cover of this legal approval.
“It is her solemn duty. Is there anyone who would object to a re-tabulation in a fair and transparent manner? NO? Then Madame Chairperson, the GHRA urges you to get on with it,” they reiterated adding that in the matter of a recount Singh has the support of the vast majority of Guyanese at home and overseas who would like to continue saying: I am Guyanese and proud of it.
According to the GHRA it has previously remained silent in the midst of all the controversies surrounding the long concluded voting on March 2 but with four interminably long weeks having passed with no positive end in sight it now steps forward.
It stressed that without GECOM’s timely actions Guyana as a nation is facing disaster.
“All they were asked to do, and did, was exercise their constitutional right to vote for the Party and leadership they wanted to entrust their livelihood over the next five years…In exchange what they are getting is the pain, the shame and the embarrassment of being a Guyanese and the promise of a future, not one gilded by the impact of their new found source of wealth, but one tarnished by the debilitating impact of international sanctions and a livelihood of unimaginable misery,” the statement explained asking if this unseemly hesitation to complete the voting tabulations is worth such a price.
“Have we as a people become so politically blinded that we are prepared to endure such humiliation and sacrifice in the cause of ensuring political victory?” they asked.
The association has dismissed the endless regurgitation of the errors of the political leadership since Independence and the many prescriptions – with respect to shared governance for example – for a better Guyana as misplaced in the current context.
“They serve to deflect our focus from what must be regarded as the ONLY issue of immediate relevance: the tabulation of the votes cast in Region 4 and the manner in which this is done!” it concluded.