Elections were credible; results can be declared
The Carico Scrutineer Team to the National Recount submitted its report to the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), in which it stated that the March 2 polls were credible, and that the results of the National Recount should constitute the basis for declaration of the elections’ results. The team also categorically rejected public efforts to discredit the March 2 polls, stating that it did not view these matters as materially relevant, so as to call the integrity of the elections into question. An excerpt from the report states “… 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.” This statement was made by the team, even as it considered the “election errors” or irregularities which occurred on poll day, of which it lists several. In this regard, the team said that it “observed no bias” in the manifestation of those errors, and that the irregularities identified are not sufficient, in their view, to invalidate the tabulation of votes at the recount.
In its conclusions and recommendations section, it said “The national recount process then, despite some of its administrative failings, despite some of the minor flaws, is not an indictment of the 2020 polls and the Team categorically rejects the concerted public efforts to discredit the 2020 poll up to the disastrous Region 4 tabulation.” This refers to the tabulation of Region Four Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo, in which the results of the general and regional elections for that district were manipulated to secure a fraudulent victory for the APNU+AFC Coalition. Caricom Ambassador to the Organisation of American States (OAS), Noel Lynch had addressed the
OAS Permanent Council on Caricom’s involvement in Guyana’s National Recount. Mr. Chairman,” Lynch told the Council, “just as democracy matters to the people of Guyana, so it matters to the Caribbean Community of which the nation of Guyana is a valued member. That is why we of Caricom regard ourselves as the most legitimate interlocutors in the Guyana situation.”
Lynch had said that Caricom has no interest in which political party wins the election, and that if each of the political parties genuinely believes it has won (as the two major parties had both claimed), they should have no fear of the recount. President David Granger had touted this statement after a visit to the Arthur Chung Conference Centre on June 7 after apprising himself of the developments at the recount venue.
(Kaieteur News)