National recount of votes begins on Wednesday

Last Updated on Sunday, 3 May 2020, 19:58 by Denis Chabrol

The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) on Sunday decided that the national recount will begin on Wednesday.

Well-placed sources say that decision was taken at today’s commission meeting. 

However, the commissioners were up to news time yet to decide on requests by the 10 opposition parties for votes from each Region to be counted at a time, starting from Region One.

The 25-day recount will be scrutinized by a three-member Caribbean Community team which includes two electoral experts from Antigua and Barbuda,  and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. They would be allowed to seek clarifications from the 10 workstations, express opinions or be asked to  express opinions,  GECOM Commissioner, Vincent Alexander.

He said the commission would meet again on Monday morning when the Chairman of the seven-member body would make known her decision on live-streaming of the exercise.  Alexander said the GECOM Chairman, Claudette Singh preferred live audio streaming and images taken of the ballot boxes to show that they would not be tampered with.

He said “the elections are not over” and local observers’ accreditation are “still valid” and similarly one person from each foreign observer mission would be allowed to witness the recount.

GECOM’s previous decision for the recount to begin with Region 4 and other regions was not changed on Sunday.