A Caribbean Community (CARICOM) high-level team has pulled out from Guyana after an injunction was filed stopping the national recount, which the delegation was here to overlook.
The injunction was granted by the court today; restraining the Guyana Elections Commission (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 GECOM and CARICOM.
“The Caribbean Community has no other choice but to withdraw the high-level Team,” the bloc’s Chairperson, Barbados Prime Minister, Mia Mottley said.
She added: “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.”
Mottley said that CARICOM deeply regrets that it was forced to withdraw the team.
The fielding of the Team had been at the request of David Granger, President of Guyana, on Saturday 14 March 2020. In response, and given the urgency of the task, the Team was mobilised immediately and arrived in Guyana in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Given that the tabulation process had been widely viewed as not being transparent or credible, President Granger and Leader of the Opposition, Bharrat Jagdeo, 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.
This step forward had been anchored by an Aide Memoire signed by both leaders on 16 March 2020, and the Terms of Reference prepared by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to govern the role of the High Level Team on Sunday, 15 March 2020, for the supervision of the recounting of the ballots, not only in Region 4, but in all 10 electoral districts.
A court order issued on 17 March 2020, 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”.
The CARICOM head thanked the team for offering to serve at such short notice and for displaying the patience they have displayed over the last three days. The Team was led by Francine Baron, former Attorney-General and Foreign Minister of Dominica, and included Anthony Boatswain, former Minister of Finance of Grenada and Cynthia Barrow-Giles, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government at the University of the West Indies. They were accompanied by Angela Taylor and Fern Narcis-Scope, the Chief Elections Officers of Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago.
In conclusion, the PM said that “it is critical that good sense prevail”, while adding that the reservation 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,” Mottley assured.
