One month on | ‘Mother of all elections’ still to be declared

IT is over one month since Guyanese took to the polls on March 2, to cast their ballots in the 2020 General and Regional Elections. However, the country has not yet had its overall elections results declared and no new administration has been sworn in.

The elections were set into motion by the passage of a no-confidence motion against the current government back in December 2018. Following several court battles in relation to the valid passage of the motion, the same was upheld by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ); the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) indicated the time frame of its readiness for the elections to the President and the President set the date.

While there were minor disputes just days before E-Day regarding the location of polling places, the elections were hailed by all stakeholders involved as largely “free and fair”. “GECOM has delivered free, fair and credible elections,” GECOM Chair, Justice (ret’d) Claudette Singh said at a press conference following the close of poll.

GECOM’s first set of results for the various Regions began to trickle in by March 3, 2020. Eligible voters came from an Official List of Electors (OLE) of 660,998 persons, while there were 2,339 polling stations across the country. By March 4, more Returning Officers (ROs) of the various regions began to declare their total results but, on the said day, things took a turn for the worse when Region Four RO, Clairmont Mingo, fell ill at the Region Four RO Office at High and Hadfield Streets.

The office is also home to GECOM’s Command Centre and Mingo was seen being rushed to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) in an ambulance. The same day that he was hospitilised, efforts were made to restart the process more than once, but a summarised spreadsheet being used by a GECOM Clerk to tally the region’s Statements of Poll (SoPs), did not find favour with several opposition political parties.

There were complaints that discrepancies were noticed during the said process and although efforts seemed positive by the commission to restart the tabulation process, the agreement fell apart. Region Four holds 879 polling stations and 285,618 electors. It is still the deciding factor for which party wins the election. On March 5, supporters of the coalition government celebrated when Mingo returned to the centre and subsequently declared the results which showed that the current administration had won the region. If the overall declaration was to be made by the commission, it would mean that the government would remain in power. However, the opposition was not having this, as they believed that the tabulation process was not legitimate and done according to law.
That same afternoon, People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Executive and Attorney-at-Law, Anil Nandlall, secured three injunctions in the High Court to block the release and declaration of the results for the general and regional elections.

Pandemonium broke out at the command entre in the evening when agents attached to the PPP/C and smaller opposition parties clashed with the police in attempts to invade an office in which Singh was in. Several political party affiliates were taken into custody. Election Observer Missions (EOMs) agreed that the process of the counting of the SoPs was flawed as Chair of The Carter Center Mission to Guyana, Jason Carter said: “The fact that there was no transparency of the results that were ultimately announced today means that those results lack credibility.” The next day, PPP/C supporters participated in violent protests in stronghold regions of the country which resulted in attacks on police personnel, injury to school children, terrorism against commuters, arson of state property, looting and widespread intimidation of government supporters.

SEVERAL ARRESTED
Several persons were arrested, some injured and one man has died following the protests. These actions, along with the acts which took place at the command centre, have since been roundly condemned. When the matters were taken to the High Court, Chief Justice (ag), Roxane George-Wiltshire, ruled on March 8 that the court has jurisdiction to hear the application intended to block the declaration of the results for the general and regional Elections until the Region Four votes were completely verified.

COURT RULING 

On March 11, she ruled that the Mingo erred during the process of tabulating the SoPs; nullified the declaration made on March 5, and ordered that the process recommence. On March 13, the votes for District Four were declared by the RO but the PPP/C, for a second time, alleged that the electoral process was flawed. The next day, lifting the spirits of many Guyanese, it was announced that CARICOM would field an independent high-level team to the country to observe a recount of all votes cast in the general and regional elections as agreed upon by President David Granger and Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo.

Plans went fairly well up until March 17, when the CARICOM team pulled out from Guyana after they requested that the agreement of the leaders be solidified by an order but Chief Parliamentary Counsel advised GECOM that such an order would be in contravention of the Constitution of Guyana and the Representation of the People Act.

Around the same period that the commission was receiving this advice, an interim injunction was moved to the High Court to prevent the recount on the basis that final declarations were made by the ROs from all 10 regions and those declarations are final. On March 27, High Court Judge, Franklin Holder, ruled that the High Court had jurisdiction to review the actions of GECOM in light of allegations that it may have acted outside of its constitutional powers when it opted to facilitate a national recount under the supervision of the high-level CARICOM team.

However, on March 31, the Full Court overruled a decision by Judge Holder, and said that the court has no jurisdiction to hear the aforementioned case on the grounds that the issues raised could only be dealt with by way of an elections petition.

The matter was then taken to the Appeal Court which allowed partial jurisdiction against the Full Court’s decision to challenge the decision of GECOM to conduct a national recount under the supervision of the CARICOM. It stated that any agreement that usurps the powers of GECOM to supervise elections in Guyana is unconstitutional. Meanwhile, GECOM deliberated on the court’s ruling and has decided that a recount will take place in the order of Regions 1-10. Following consequential orders, it hopes to act on a detailed plan which is to be presented at the commission’s next meeting on Wednesday, March 8, 2020.