A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) agent, Simona Broomes has said that the Coalition is committed to seeing the national recount process through, and will cooperate with all stakeholders to ensure it continues smoothly in the days ahead.
Giving a brief update to the media just before the beginning of the recount process today (Friday; Day 3), Broomes noted the process is moving a bit slow, “but it is moving”.
“We are not stalled, which is a fantastic thing and so once the process keeps moving, we know that we walking to the direction to the end.”
Broomes said that her expectation is that in the coming days, the process will begin to move faster “bearing in mind that not every day you go to a work station that it’s the same staff there or the same representatives.”
In terms of the decision by the Commission to do the tabulation of the Statements of Recount (SoRs), at the end of each day, Broomes said that the Coalition will respect and support this decision.
“The chairman made a decision that the tabulation would be done daily at the end of each day…we will have to work with what GECOM agreed, GECOM is in control of the process,” Broomes said.
“We starting this where everyone is; at the same line, nobody got any advantage. It is what is in the box that we are going through,” the APNU/AFC agent added.
On Thursday, Peoples Progressive Party (PPP) General Secretary, Bharrat Jagdeo, accused the APNU/AFC of using deliberate strategies to drag out the national recount process, so that the Coalition could hang on to power longer and possibly set the stage to demand fresh elections.
During a virtual press conference, Jagdeo detailed a number of strategies, he claims, the APNU/AFC are using to frustrate the recount process and cast doubt on the March 2 elections.
Jagdeo questioned if the APNU/AFC Coalition are confident that they won the elections, then why are they making such “frivolous” claims that the Voters’ List was bloated and dead people and persons who migrated voted in the elections.
He said that his party will continue to expose the APNU/AFC’s plan to create doubt and confusion regarding the recount process.
So far, GECOM has managed to complete recounting the ballots cast in 65 of the 2339 polling stations.
However, this slothful pace has raised a number of questions from various stakeholders as to whether the Commission would meet the proposed 25-day timeline for the exercise.
