Chairman of the Private Sector Commission, Captain Gerry Gouveia on Thursday addressed the current elections debacle facing the nation, where he emphasized the need for a count of all ballots cast during the March 2 National and Regional elections.
Appearing on a live stream on his social media page, Gouveia indicated that this is the only way to return Guyana to normalcy and restore its democratic powers. Presently, with parties claiming their victories, he said this count will seek to reveal the actual winner.
“There is only one way this will end in Guyana. The only way this will end is with the counting of the ballots in those boxes. That is only one way and we don’t know; I certainly don’t know who is the winner of these elections. Everybody thinks they will win. There is only one way we would know and there is only one way we will protect the truth, the democracy and return Guyana to a place like that,” he asserted.
Zeroing in on the last three weeks, the PSC Chair said that there are forces acting against the truth, and this is being viewed internationally. According to him, the truth will come to light.
Speaking about the operations of the Guyana Elections Commission, Gouveia pointed out that there are persons imbedded in the secretariat whose actions have ignited conflicts and as such, they must be contained.
“The truth always triumphs. I don’t see this yet as a conflict between political parties. I see this as a conflict with GECOM. I see this where there are people in GECOM that needed to be corralled. We need to ensure that these people are contained,” he shared.
Mere hours after President David Granger and Leader of the Opposition, Bharrat Jagdeo, inked an agreement to have a Caribbean Community (Caricom) team of specialists supervise a recount of the March 2, 2020, General and Regional Elections, an APNU/AFC candidate petitioned the High Court for any injunction to block the activity on Tuesday. Stakeholders had expected this process to bring the delayed conundrum to an end.
On Tuesday afternoon, the high-level Caricom team along with Secretary-General Irwin LaRoque, visited the GECOM Secretariat, where they formally withdrew from the recounting – a process which they would have offered oversight.
The smooth elections process was railroaded into disaster after Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo started using a spreadsheet to verify the District Four data, instead of using the Statement of Polls.
