Recount must be done within the ambit of the curfew – PM tells GECOM

The National COVID-19 Task Force (NCTF) has decided that the pending national recount must be conducted within the COVID-19 curfew hours, and international observers coming to the country must submit themselves to a 14-day quarantine at a government institution.

The Task Force has also requested that GECOM allows four technical experts of the Public Health Emergency Operations Centre (PHEOC) to conduct a site visit to the Arthur Chung Conference Centre (ACCC) – where the recount will take place – to assess whether distancing arrangements conform to the established COVID-19 guidelines and the published Order.

EXECUTIVE DECISION NON-NEGOTIABLE

These decisions were relayed by Head of the NCTF, Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo, to the Chair of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Justice (Ret’d) Claudette Singh, on Saturday. However, it was brought to the public’s attention on Sunday, through the Prime Minister’s weekly column, ‘My Turn’.

Justice Singh had written to the NCTF in request of: a recommended time at which the daily recount exercise should end; the number of persons who should be safely accommodated at the recount venue and the required protocols for quarantining persons coming from abroad, and who were invited to be part of the recount process.

The NCTF was established by President David Granger, as a means to better coordinate government’s action plan in response to COVID-19. It led to the implementation of several emergency measures which include a 6:00pm to 6:00am curfew, a ban on international travel and the mandatory closure of non-essential businesses.

The Prime Minister said in his column that there has been no politicising of the coronavirus pandemic by the Task Force but noted that “the recount will take place during a pandemic when there are in effect restrictive emergency measures, similar to those in all other countries that are battling COVID-19”.

He stated further: “We may have our diverse and differing political views on the no-confidence motion, the incomplete electoral processes and, even, our preferences as to the outcomes. But one thing ought to be absolutely clear: there is established under our Constitution a President of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, ‘who shall be Head of State, the supreme executive authority, and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of the Republic’. In the present circumstances where the Constitution is the supreme law, this dispensation remains immutable and non-negotiable.”

GRANT SPECIAL PROVISION

The Commission had long agreed that the presence of COVID-19 in Guyana would affect the logistics of the national recount. However, the Opposition and Opposition-nominated Commissioners were not pleased with the response of the Task Force especially as it relates to restrictions to the COVID-19 curfew and the mandatory quarantining of international observers.

Regarding the latter, GECOM has re-invited the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to validate the recount process after the previous high-level team withdrew from the process on March 17, 2020, after it was beset by several legal interventions.

Opposition-nominated Commissioner Sase Gunraj believes that NCTF is working to jeopardise the process with the mandatory 14-day quarantine measure.

“I recognise the seriousness of COVID-19 and seek in no way to trifle with this. But isn’t the resolution of our electoral process by providing credible results to our nation equally important?” he questioned on social media on Sunday.

He added: “I always believed that efforts would be made to stymie CARICOM’s involvement in observation and oversight of the recount. This is evidenced by the delay occasioned to facilitate initiation of the Court proceedings, fumigation of the venue and now this!”

Regarding the national curfew, he argued that “many other activities [are] being condoned at all ungodly hours during this curfew period” which begs the question why the Commission cannot be granted special provision.

GLOBAL BEST PRACTICES

On the flip side, Government-nominated Commissioner Vincent Alexander, on Sunday, told Guyana Chronicle on the matter of the mandatory 14-day period, that this should not result in debate at the Commission as the Task Force is being guided by health experts and international best practices.

“This is an international best-practice in the face of COVID and I don’t see why Guyana should be different. It’s in the interest of the people coming, it’s in the interest of the people they have to interface with, it is the best in our circumstance,” he said.

Countries with mandatory 14-day quarantine measures upon re-entry include Chile, Costa Rica, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Ghana, Vietnam, Australia, Uruguay, New Zealand, Israel, Croatia, Czech Republic, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Serbia (28 days), Turkey, Ukraine, Uganda and several others.

In the Caribbean, Anguilla, Barbados, the Bahamas, Bermuda, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis and others either have mandatory 14-day quarantine for all visitors or those coming from specific countries.

The 17 Guyanese who arrived from Barbados on a chartered flight in March were also subjected to a 14-day quarantine by local health authorities.

This aside, some persons have suggested testing the CARICOM officials as soon as they enter the country and Alexander said that such a decision must be made by the Task Force. Until then, he said, persons must respect the view of health experts as opposed to public opinion.

Even so, he said that the alternative has long been put forward at the level of the Commission that if the CARICOM team cannot come from outside of the country, that a team of CARICOM officials be sourced from the CARICOM Secretariat located in Georgetown.

Added to this, Commissioner Alexander said that the CARICOM Secretariat itself has already suggested that while some CARICOM representatives could be physically present, others could be virtually present via streaming.

RECOUNT COULD TAKE A MONTH

Meanwhile, the advice to the Commission laid out by the Prime Minister from the NCTF, with respect to the curfew, disclosed that the GECOM Chair had her sights set on a 10-hour work schedule.

Government-nominated Commissioner, Vincent Alexander, told the newspaper, on Sunday, that it was based on the directive now received from the NCTF that GECOM had intended to confirm a final time period for work schedule.

With the GECOM Chair deciding that there will be no more than 10 workstations at the recount centre, due to the threat of COVID-19 and the now disclosed 10-hour work schedule, Alexander estimates that the total recount could take a little over 30 days.

In contrast, the Opposition has proposed a 10- to 14-day recount period and has been lobbying for the same for weeks.

There seems to be no issue between the Opposition-nominated Commissioners or Government-nominated commissioners with the NCTF’s request for PHEOC to conduct a site visit to the recount centre to determine whether social distancing standards are being met.

Alexander said that when the Commission convenes its next meeting today, hopefully decisions will be made on a commencement date, the expected duration of the recount and any outstanding matters.

He said: “Now that we know those things we can start. We couldn’t start without knowing those things…we need to get this exercise done as quickly as possible and people need to stop putting up barricades in moving forward and then blaming GECOM.”