Chairperson of the Caribbean Community (Caricom), Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley, in a strongly-worded statement said that there are “forces” in Guyana that do not want to see a recount of the country’s ballots from the March 2 General and Regional Elections.
Her comment comes after the five-member independent high-level team, which she fielded to supervise a national recount, withdrew their services on Tuesday following an injunction from the High Court to block the recounting process.
In a statement on Tuesday evening, Mottley explained that Caricom has been forced to withdraw the regional team.
“The Caribbean Community has no other choice but to withdraw the high-level team. It is clear that there are forces that do not want to see the votes recounted for whatever reason. Any Government which is sworn in without a credible and fully transparent vote count process would lack legitimacy,” the Caricom Chair asserted.
On this note, PM Mottley reiterated that it is critical that good sense prevails.
“The preservation of law and order is paramount and all parties must work hard to ensure that there is peace on the roads and in the communities across Guyana. The Community remains committed to the people of Guyana,” she contended.
Following the declaration of the contentious Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) results on Friday night, which many of the political parties that contested the March elections alleged was marred with fraud, the Caricom Chair intervened and assembled the independent high-level team to supervise the recounting process.
According to Mottley in Tuesday’s statement, the fielding of the high-level team had been at the request of incumbent President, David Granger, on Saturday last.
In response, and given the urgency of the task, she noted that the team was mobilised immediately and arrived in Guyana in the early hours of Sunday morning to supervise the recounting of the ballots of the March 2 elections.
“Given that the tabulation process had been widely viewed as not being transparent or credible, President Granger and Mr Bharrat Jagdeo, Leader of the Opposition, agreed that the only possible resolution was by way of a recount supervised by an independent team. This was seen as a significant contribution to bolstering the transparency and legitimacy of the electoral process,” the missive from the Caricom Chair noted.
She went on to explain that this step forward had been anchored by an aide-memoire signed by both leaders on Monday, and the Terms of Reference (ToR) prepared by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) on Sunday to govern the role of the high-level team for the supervision of the recounting of the ballots in all 10 electoral districts.
However, the Caricom Chair noted that the court order issued on Tuesday granted an injunction restraining GECOM from recounting any ballots of the General and Regional Elections of 2 March 2020, and set aside “any agreement between the President of Guyana and the Leader of the Opposition and or any agreement between the Guyana Elections Commission and the Caribbean Community”.
Nevertheless, PM Mottley expressed appreciation to the members of the regional team for offering to serve at such short notice and for displaying the patience they have displayed over the last three days.
The high-level team was led by former Attorney General and current Foreign Affairs Minister of Dominica, Francine Baron, and included former Finance Minister of Grenada, Anthony Boatswain; Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Cynthia Barrow-Giles; Chief Electoral Officer of Barbados, Angela Taylor; and Chief Elections Officer of Trinidad and Tobago, Fern Narcis-Scope.
