When President David Granger and Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo along with Caricom and GECOM’s Chair signed the “aide memoire”, the document that stated the terms and conditions of the recount and verification of the votes cast in the ten electoral districts in the country, it was followed by a gazetted order that gives legality to the mandate of the recount process.
The Guyanese nation and the world got the impression based on the content of the agreement that the recount process had at least two major objectives: (a) tabulation of votes cast (valid votes} and (2) verifying the creditability of the election process.
The decision arrived at by the Caricom scrutineers that a winner of the elections can be declared based on the tabulation of the recount votes, with no genuine attempt to address the creditability of those votes, knowing that this is critical to the acceptance of the outcome, flies in the face of natural justice and can only worsen the political/ racial divide in the country.
Rather than helping to put a brake on our history of tainted elections practices the Caricom team has reinforced our negative electoral conduct.
In concluding I must point out that the statement in the Caricom scrutineers report that the APNU+AFC did not provide evidence to support their claims of discrepancies, anomalies and irregularities, is not only erroneous, but an insult to the Guyanese nation, and calls into question the objectivity, honesty and impartially of this distinguished Caricom team.
