GEORGETOWN, Guyana (CMC) — A Three-member Caribbean Community (CARICOM) team that monitored the recount of the ballots cast in the disputed March 2 regional and general elections in Guyana, says it did not “witness anything which would render the recount, and by extension, the casting of the ballots…to have thwarted the will of the people”.

In addition, the team said that it has seen nothing “preventing the election results and its declaration by GECOM (Guyana Elections Commission) from reflecting the will of the voters”.

In its 152-page report, a copy of which has been obtained by the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC), the CARICOM team headed by Cynthia Barrow-Giles, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government at the University of the West Indies (UWI), and including  John Jarvis, Commissioner of the Antigua and Barbuda Electoral Commission and Sylvester King, Deputy Supervisor of Elections of St Vincent and the Grenadines, noted that the “actual recount of the vote was indeed transparent”.

In its report, the three-member team noted the problems encountered in the lead-up to the recount but praised the GECOM workers “who laboured long hours over the course of thirty-three days to bring the disputed election results to a near end, for this was just one of the four stages outlined of the Gazetted Order on the national recount”.

The recount exercise ended on June 9 and the main opposition People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) claimed that it showed it had won the elections by more than 15,000 votes, while the ruling coalition, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) claimed there were numerous instances of irregularities and anomalies.

The report by the CARICOM team is in sharp contrast to one delivered last Saturday by the Chief Elections Officer (CEO), Keith Lowenfield who claimed that the results did not meet the standard of fair and credible elections.

He said approximately 55 per cent of all votes cast for general elections stand to be impacted due to “either anomalies and/or voter impersonation or unreconciled ballot boxes.

“Specifically, 7.2 per cent of the votes cast were impacted by anomalies, 39.2 per cent were impacted by voter impersonation, 3.4 per cent impacted by both anomalies/irregularities and voter impersonation, and 5.7 per cent impacted by unreconciled ballot boxes,” said Lowenfield, whose report, like the CARICOM’s document will be discussed by GECOM before an official announcement of the election results are given.

In its report, the CARICOM team said that the “recounting of the votes was conducted with as much precision as possible and with absolutely no hint of bias shown on the part of GECOM station workers.

“Their impartiality with respect to the actual vote recount was outstanding. Overall, while we acknowledge that there were some defects in the recount of the March 2, 2020 votes cast for the General and Regional Elections on Guyana, the Team did not witness anything which would render the recount, and by extension, the casting of the ballot on March 2, so grievously deficient procedurally or technically…or sufficiently deficient to have thwarted the will of the people and consequently preventing the election results and its declarations by GECOM from reflecting the will of the voters,” the document stated.