Statement by chair of CARICOM, Mia Amor Mottley
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados – Many of you are aware that I led a high-level team of Caribbean prime ministers to Georgetown [earlier this week] to meet with all of the affected parties from the recent general election of March 2, 2020.
CARICOM has remained engaged over the last few days.
I would wish to announce that after discussions this morning, His Excellency President David Granger and Leader of the Opposition Bharrat Jagdeo had agreed to a recount of all Regions and not just Region 4, in accordance with the ruling of the Chief Justice of March 11, 2020. This has been agreed to by Bharrat Jagdeo.
We believe that this is a giant step in being able to determine the will of the Guyanese people in the election of March 2, 2020. It will also allow the electoral process to regain the confidence of all locally, regionally and internationally.
I have spoken directly to both the president and the leader of the opposition and they have both committed to abide by the results of a fair and transparent recount of each and every ballot, as supervised by the CARICOM team. We also agreed that there need to be steps taken to secure the integrity of the ballot boxes until the recount takes place.
The independent high-level team will be chaired by Francine Baron, former attorney-general and foreign minister; and comprise Anthony Boatswain, former minister of finance of Grenada and Cynthia Barrow-Giles, senior lecturer in the department of the government of UWI. They will also be accompanied by the two chief elections officers from Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago.
Both president Granger and the leader of the opposition, Jagdeo have agreed that the recount should commence once the CARICOM team is on the ground.
I can confirm that all efforts are being made to have the team in Guyana as soon as possible. A further announcement will be made as to the exact details once the team is on the ground.