The Presidential Candidate and other officials of the People’s Progressive Party met today with the Chairperson and other officials of the Guyana Elections Commission and recommended an extension by no more than 1 week for the completion of the recount of votes.
GECOM has been looking to extend the 25-day timeline that it set for itself to complete the recount. With less than 50% of the total boxes counted, the Commission added two extra workstations for the recount, taking the total number of workstations up to 12.
PPP Presidential Candidate Irfaan Ali today told reporters that more workstations will have to be put in place to fast track the recount process. He said any extension should not go beyond more than 7 days.
“We discussed a number of possible measures that GECOM can implement so that we achieve not necessarily the target of 25 days but taking everything into consideration not exceeding that target by more than a week”, Ali said.
Mr. Ali also explained that his party has made a number of recommendations that should be able to assist the Elections Commission to complete the recount in the shortest possible timeline while still achieving transparency.
Among those recommendations is for a quota system to be put in place for each workstation.
According to Ali, “it is clear that even with the two additional stations, much more is needed if we are to achieve a target of 100 boxes per day…One of the first recommendations we looked at and share is examining a quota system, a minimum quota is set for each station and those stations work every day until they complete their quota”.
He said the GECOM Chair is hoping to reach a daily recount target of 100 boxes. Yesterday saw the highest number of boxes counted in a single day since the recount started. A total of 77 boxes were counted yesterday.
The PPP Presidential Candidate said he hopes that the Commission will take his party’s recommendations on board to assist in quickening the recount.
The Elections Commission was hoping to add six more workstations to the Arthur Chung Convention Centre but in keeping with physical distancing requirements for COVID-19, just two new workstations were put in place.
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