BREAKING: GECOM Chairman to decide this afternoon on use of recount data

Last Updated on Tuesday, 16 June 2020, 14:08 by Denis Chabrol

The Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Retired Justice Claudette Singh is Tuesday afternoon at about 3:30 PM expected to decide whether to instruct Chief Elections Officer, Keith Lowenfield  to use the recount data to compile a report for declaration of the long-awaited results of the March 2, 2020 general and regional elections, Elections Commissioner Charles Corbin said.

His colleague, Vincent Alexander could not say whether he believed that he convinced the GECOM Chairman that there should be fresh elections in light of the alleged  irregularities including impersonation, misuse of Certificates of Employment and Oaths of Identity.

“We’ll find out later,” he said.

Alexander said that at Tuesday’s meeting which began at 10 AM, “she just listened primarily”. Asked whether he and his colleagues were confident that they would get “their way”, Alexander said “I am confident we made a just case.”

Alexander said he, Corbin and the other pro-coalition elections commissioner, Desmond Trotman, in a written submission, argued that “that would impact negatively the true result of the election to the extent it might even change the allocation of seats.”

Reiterating that people should not be disenfranchised, Alexander said “our conclusion was that we should have new elections to ensure that every Guyanese is properly enfranchised and that the result is a reflection of the individual will and the collective will of the Guyanese people.”

The GECOM Chairman’s decision comes against the background of mounting international pressure by the Organisation of American States (OAS), Commonwealth and the Carter Centre for GECOM to declare the final results based on the national vote recount that was supervised by three scrutineers of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM)