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Observers blocked from receiving statement of recount after first week
By Shikema Dey
The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has halted a practice it had taken up, to give Statements of Recount (SOR) to all local and international observers participating in the national recount at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre.
Commissioner Vincent Alexander
Since the commencement of the recount process on May 6, all observers and party agents along with the CARICOM scrutinising team were handed signed copies of the SORs. However, GECOM backpedaled on this decision yesterday, excluding observers from being given copies.
When the question of the discontinuing of the practice was put to GECOM Commissioner Vincent Alexander during a briefing at the recount site yesterday, he offered that it is not provided in the order for the recount for GECOM to give the documents to the observers.
The order states that the result of the general and regional recount of each ballot box shall be recorded as provided for on a statement of recount upon the completion of the recount of each box. Further, the order outlines that the statements of recount shall be signed by the person conducting the recount and by the representative of each contesting party present, in the presence of the CARICOM Scrutinising Team, representatives of political parties that contested the said elections, International and Local Observers accredited by the Guyana Elections Commission, and advisors to the Guyana Elections Commission.
Asked why it was being done in the first place, Alexander said that it was an error.
He noted that while it was brought to the attention of the Commission, it was the Secretariat who advised that it be corrected. Alexander also pointed out that it is not the standard operating procedure for observers participating in Guyana’s elections or anywhere else, after he had been asked why GECOM would not let them have the statements anyway.
The CARICOM team however, will continue to receive the statements, since they are scrutineers, not observers.
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