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The Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) has called for fresh elections saying that the numerous discrepancies found during the recount process should render the March 2, 2020 polls null and void.
“The Union’s position is that the entire process had been severely compromised and that information generated from the Recount Process could not be adequately used to declare a winner,” GPSU said in a statement Sunday night. “It was further concluded that the March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections should be negated – rendered null and void. Steps should be taken immediately to sanitise the list of electors and new elections called, as soon as possible. Action should also be taken to rectify all the weaknesses and discrepancies identified during the recount process, including punitive action against all defaulting Presiding Officers. This will enable the Guyanese people to have full confidence that their votes have been counted and the results are a true reflection of the legitimate democratic process.”
The GPSU’s position comes amid repeated calls from Western countries for the winner of the polls to be declared from the widely discredited recount data. Today a key ruling in the High Court will determine whether the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) will use the results from the recount.
In its statement, GPSU said “as a continuously accredited Elections Observer for over two decades, the Guyana Public Service Union once again observed the General and Regional Elections 2020. Teams from the Union were present in Administrative Regions two, three, four, and ten observing the ballot processes at over two hundred polling stations on polling day March 2, 2020.”
The union said from the polling day observations, balloting operations appeared smooth and transparent, even though the Union was very certain that below that apparently pristine surface problems existed, because of the obviously flawed lists of electors being used at polling stations. “The lists of electors were over 10 years old and because of a Court ruling and subsequent position taken by the GECOM Chairperson, could not be adequately sanitized prior to the March 2, 2020 Elections. Listed therein were over 650,000 electors over age 18 years old from a total country population approximating 750,000.”
GPSU observed that following Election Day operations and some dissatisfaction with preliminary results released by GECOM, an agreement was made between the leaders of the major political parties for a recount of the votes and based on this CARICOM was accredited as the major observer. It said to give the Recount legal status, an order was made and published in the official gazette (Order 60/2020). Bearing in mind that collectively, the issues raised by the two major parties, questioned the validity of votes cast and the accuracy of tabulation of the votes in all ten administrative regions, the objective of the recount was to ascertain the total number of valid votes cast for each political party.
Hence, the party with the most valid votes was to be declared the winner, pursuant to section 96 of the ROPA and Article 77 of the Constitution of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, GPSU said. It noted too that the Elections Commission by way of its Recount Order (#60/2020) specified the process and criterion for the determination of valid votes. In fact Article 162 (b) of the Constitution empowers GECOM “to take such actions as appear to it necessary or expedient to ensure fairness, impartiality and compliance with the provisions of this Constitution or of any Act of Parliament on the part of persons exercising powers or performing duties connected with or relating to the matters aforesaid.” All contesting parties signed on to and publicly supported the Order.
GPSU said its observer team at the recount process observed a number of irregularities that were also witnessed by all parties present and recorded in GECOM’s observation reports as provided for by the Recount Order. “These irregularities included a number of missing statutory documents necessary for the reconciliation and validation of ballots cast, which included missing documentation such as, poll books, oaths of identity, unused ballots and counterfoils, among others. This suggested to a large extent, voter impersonation and collusion between polling staff to that end.”
The union argued that pieces of evidence in support of the cases of voter impersonation were referred by GECOM to the Commissioner of Police, who confirmed a high percentage to be factual. “Based on the number of irregularities unearthed by the recount process witnessed by the Union’s observer team, the Union has arrived at the inescapable conclusion that the results of the March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections could not be credible. It therefore appeared that a party or parties conspired to use information in the flawed voters list in an unlawful manner to their advantage,
“ GPSU said.
According to the union the existence of the irregularities made it difficult to identify a clear winner without being able to qualitatively pinpoint, and weed out all irregular votes. “Hence, even though GECOM was properly able to tabulate the votes, the extent of missing documentation and the obvious inclusion of irregular votes, made it imperative that the votes had to be sanitised, prior to the end product being determined credible.”
Also, in numerous instances it was impractical to validate votes cast, due to the absence of statutory documents required for reconciliation. The union cited the example, where there were 47 ballot boxes from East Coast of Demerara, Region 4 that contained ballots without any of the required statutory documentation.
