GEORGETOWN, Guyana (CMC) — The injunction granted to the main opposition People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) ordering the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to verify the results of Region Four will be contested in the High Court on Saturday, the campaign co-chair of the ruling coalition, Joseph Harmon has said.

“That injunction has several defects in the view of our attorneys. However, the chairman of the Elections Commission (retired justice Claudette Singh) herself being a former Justice of Appeal decided she will follow what the Court said and have agreed that this procedure for the swearing of a President will be put on hold and that the parties will go to the High Court tomorrow at 10:00 am (local time) where the injunction will sought to be discharged,” Harmon said in a statement.

“So that, the situation has been put on hold until such time that this matter is discharged and we expect that will be done tomorrow,” he added.

Attorneys representing the PPP/C had earlier been successful in obtaining a High Court injunction ordering GECOM to verify the results of Region Four that the ruling coalition, a Partnership for National Unity plus the Alliance for Change (APNU=AFC) said showed that it won Monday’s regional and general elections.

Attorney Anil Nandlall told reporters that the opposition party had been able to secure three injunctions against GECOM from declaring the results of the general elections.

The move by the opposition followed the release of the results of Region Four by the Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo, showing that the coalition had been able to overturn a huge deficit by winning the country’s largest administrative region.

Nandlall, a former attorney general, told reporters that first injunction prevents the Region Four Returning Officer from making any disclosure of the results in that division “until and unless he complies with the statutory procedures set out in Section 84 of the Representation of the People’s Act”.

Nandlall, who is also an executive member of the PPP/C, said that the second injunction compels the Returning Officer to comply with Section 84 of the Representation of the People’s Act and “to conduct and complete that verification exercise and then make the declaration as the law requires it to be done,” while the third injunction restrains the Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield and GECOM from making any declarations of the results of the general elections “unless and until the Returning Officer complies with the statutory code of verification enunciated in section 84”.

Harmon, who is also general secretary of the APNU, said all the results of the 10 Regions had been sent to GECOM and that “the next step should be for a declaration to be made by the Chief Elections Officer, (Keith Lowenfield), followed by a meeting of GECOM and a confirmation of those results by the Commission.

“Thereafter the chairman sends a statement to the Chancellor of the Judiciary who will then act upon that to have the President sworn in,” he said, noting that the process may have been halted as a result of the injunction served on the Commission.

“It is our expectation that this matter will be treated with some amount of speed because (of) the security situation in the country…and in order for there to be calm, stability, restraint we have to have the President sworn in very quickly and that his government be able to take the necessary steps to guarantee the peace, stability of the people of this country,” Harmon added.