CARICOM Observer team declares Guyana election recount credible

SOURCE: Newsroom Guyana: The CARICOM team which scrutinised the national vote recount has said nothing prevents the Chair of the Guyana Elections Commission from declaring the results of the recount which it says reflects the will of Guyanese.

“We are…of the unshakeable belief that the people of Guyana expressed their will at the ballot box and as a result, the three-person CARICOM Observer Group concludes that the recount results are completely acceptable,” the report presented to GECOM and political leaders states.

It added: “The national recount process then, despite some of its minor flaws, is not an indictment of the 2020 polls and the team categorically rejects the concerted public efforts to discredit the 2020 polls up to the disastrous Region 4 tabulation.

“Despite our concerns, 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. Any aggrieved political party has been afforded the right to seek redress before the courts in the form of an election petition.”

It further added: “Overall, while we acknowledged that there were some defects in the recount of the March 02, 2020 votes cast for the General and Regional Elections, the team did not witness anything which would render the recount and by extension, the casting of the ballot on March 02, so grievously deficient procedural or technically (despite some irregularities) or sufficiently deficient to have thwarted the will of the people and subsequently prevent the elections results and its declaration by GECOM from reflecting the will of the voters. The actual count of the vote was indeed transparent.” ( Newsroom Guyana/BT)