Guyana's Pres­i­dent Ir­faan Ali has named re­tired Jus­tice of Ap­peal from Trinidad and To­ba­go, Stan­ley John to head the probe in­to the coun­try's 2020 gen­er­al elec­tions.

Pres­i­dent Ali made the an­nounce­ment in a state­ment on Tues­day.

The oth­er mem­bers are For­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, High Court Judge and Act­ing Jus­tice of Ap­peal in the East­ern Caribbean, God­frey P. Smith SC; For­mer Chair and Chief Elec­tions Com­mis­sion­er of In­dia, Dr S. Y. Quraishi; and, For­mer Chan­cel­lor (Ag) of the Ju­di­cia­ry in Guyana, Carl Singh OR CCH.

"In keep­ing with my com­mit­ment to es­tab­lish a Com­mis­sion of In­quiry (COI) to in­quire in­to the events of the 2020 Gen­er­al and Re­gion­al Elec­tions, I am pleased to an­nounce that the fol­low­ing per­sons shall be ap­point­ed to con­duct this in­quiry:

Chair­man of the Com­mis­sion – Re­tired Jus­tice of Ap­peal Stan­ley John; For­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, High Court Judge and Act­ing Jus­tice of Ap­peal in the East­ern Caribbean, God­frey P. Smith SC; For­mer Chair and Chief Elec­tions Com­mis­sion­er of In­dia, Dr S. Y. Quraishi; and, For­mer Chan­cel­lor (Ag), Carl Singh OR CCH, " Pres­i­dent Ali an­nounced.

He added that to as­sist the Com­mis­sion with its work, Dr Afari Jayan and Dr Nasim Zai­di will serve as re­source per­son­nel.

In the com­ing weeks, the in­tend­ed Com­mis­sion­ers and re­source per­son­nel will re­view the re­ports and doc­u­men­ta­tion, set out modal­i­ties and com­mence work.

Ap­proach­ing two years af­ter the in­quiry had been promised on Au­gust 8th 2020, the an­nounce­ment by the Pres­i­dent will shine the spot­light on alledged acts of rig­ging such as the read­ing of fake num­bers from State­ments of Poll and use of a bed­sheet which frus­trat­ed the val­i­da­tion process.

It took five months be­fore the fi­nal elec­tion re­sult could be de­clared.

Sev­er­al key elec­toral of­fi­cials – in­clud­ing Chief Elec­tion Of­fi­cer, Kei­th Lowen­field and Dis­trict Four Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cer Clair­mont Min­go are be­fore the court on crim­i­nal charges but the tri­als are yet to get un­der­way.