As day three of the national recount gets underway, calls are being made for the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to increase the hours for the tabulation of the Statements of Recount (SORs).
In an interview with media operatives, Peoples Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Executive Member, Anil Nandlall, said that he intends to approach GECOM to review the matter with the aim of increasing the daily hours so that the tabulation of the SoRs could be fully completed at the end of each day.
The Gazetted Recount Order had stipulated that the tabulation will be done upon the completion of the ballot boxes for each of the ten districts – but majority of the political parties wanted continuous tabulations.
As such, GECOM made a decision yesterday for the tabulation exercise to be conducted daily from 17:00hrs to 18:30hrs.
“Yesterday for the first time, the tabulation exercise got underway, unfortunately it did not complete or unfold as we expected.”
Nandlall argued that only roughly a third of the SORs completed have been completed during the tabulation process.
“That has to be improved,” he posited.
Nandlall reasoned that the tabulation process is being dragged out because of the dependence upon observation reports during the exercise, which he says has no relevance in the exercise.
The observation reports are included on the SORs.
Meanwhile, the PPP Executive also lamented the fact that the actual recount process is moving at a very slow pace. “It is undesirable, we hope that every day, we can increase the speed of the process,” Nandlall said.
Nandlall also noted that another matter that is outstanding relates to a typed document detailing the “summary of issues” that has been resolved by the various parties.
He related that GECOM was supposed to have presented a document to all the parties regarding these issues, and the decisions made on each, so that there would be no confusion and delays going forward.
“Once you don’t have it writing then you have to have them resolved all over again, which leads to delays,” Nandlall said.
