GECOM HIJACKED THE RECOUNT AND CONVERTED IT INTO AN AUDIT

The President and Leader of the Opposition agreed on a recount. In their Aide Memoire, the word “recount” appears four times while the word “audit” does not appear. “Recount” was never defined, but the Aide Memoire stated that it would take place in accordance with “the applicable law,” as well as the Constitution and court […]

GECOM HAS LOST ALL CLAIM TO CREDIBILITY

The jury is still out on whether GECOM will deliver credible election results, notwithstanding the widespread demands of the international community and a broad cross-section of Guyanese. In any rational society, the entire membership of GECOM would have resigned due to its failure to honour its constitutional responsibilities. By resigning GECOM would be demonstrating its […]

GECOM SITS AND WAITS – LIKE THE OLD GUMBIE CAT

The headline is not an original formulation. It is partially borrowed from the late Miles Fitzpatrick, then a columnist in the Stabroek News. He was writing just before the reforms of the early 1990s about the Elections Commission and its Chair, Sir Harold Bollers, a former Chief Justice of Guyana, in an article entitled “The […]

PHANTOM VOTES

Section 84 of the Representation of the People Act is quite clear. It requires the Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo, in the presence of persons entitled to be present, to “ascertain the total votes cast in favour of each list in the district by adding up the votes recorded in favour of the list in accordance […]

SAD TO SAY

It is sad to say that the Global Witness report, “Signed Away,” analyzing EEPGL’s (the ExxonMobil controlled Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited) agreement with Guyana and the damning circumstances leading up to its signing, will not influence the vote of more than a handful of people, if so many, at the elections on March […]