The governing APNU+AFC coalition today insisted that GECOM must act only on “valid” votes cast at the March 2nd general elections even though there is no basis for discarding votes which were counted on the night of the polls and during an exhaustive recount.

This ruling vindicated the insistence of A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) Coalition that only valid and credible votes must determine the outcome of the General and Regional Elections which were held on March 2, 2020.

The Gazetted Order No. 60 of 2020 provides specifically: “the Guyana Elections Commission, in exercise of the authority vested in it under Article 162 of the Constitution and Pursuant to section 22 of the Elections Laws (Amendment) Act No. 15 of 2000, seeks to remove difficulties connected with the application of the Representation of the People Act [Chapter 1:03] in implementing its decisions relating to the conduct of the aforementioned recount of all ballots issued with the ballots cast, destroyed, spoiled, stamped and as deemed necessary, their counterfoils/stubs, authenticity of the ballots and the number of the voters listed and crossed out as having voted; the number utilized, statistical anomalies, occurrences recorded in the Poll Book”.

The Representation of the People Act [Chapter 1:03 of the Laws of Guyana, at Section 96] requires the Chief Election Officer (CEO) to ascertain the valid votes cast in an election.

The APNU+AFC Coalition calls the public’s attention to the comment of former Judge of the Caribbean Court of Justice Professor Duke Pollard in the Guyana Chronicle newspaper of 11th June 2020 asserting that the Elections Commission is bound to produce credible elections results and that it cannot submit to the country information which lacks integrity: “If the information provided for the outcome is not credible, then the outcome itself could not be credible.”