Ramjattan says will immediately congratulate Irfaan Ali if recount shows PPP won elections

Leader of the Alliance For Change (AFC) Khemraj Ramjattan on Tuesday said he will be the first to congratulate the PPP’s Irfaan Ali if a recount of the March 02 votes shows the PPP won the elections.

Speaking on a radio programme, Ramjattan said that he does not support a declaration of a winner using the declarations made so far. The declarations include that of Region Four, which has been condemned as being fraudulent.

With full support for the national recount committed to by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Ramjattan said if the PPP wins “I would immediately congratulate Irfaan Ali and tell him God bless and I am here to give as much support as possible.”

“… I would hope they would do the same if APNU+AFC wins,” he added.

The AFC Leader said he does not support the use of the declarations by the ten Returning Officers in the week following the elections to determine an overall winner.

“Do the recount here, do that which will ensure everybody feels satisfied, win lose or draw, we accept and we move on…I believe that this is better than if you have a declaration that half the country would not like whether that half is the PPP half or the APNU+AFC half,” he said on an interview on Kaieteur Radio on Tuesday.

He said until the process is deemed transparent, there should be no declaration.

The tabulation of results in Region Four –the largest voting district –has been deemed fraudulent by electoral observers and the ten other parties which contested the polls against the APNU+AFC Coalition.

The national recount is expected to run from 08:00hrs to 18:00hrs with ten work stations simultaneously counting ballots.

The votes cast at 2,339 polling stations have to be recounted.

GECOM has not yet given a start date for the process which will be done at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre.

The AFC Leader urged citizens to be patient noting that at the end of the process, democracy will be “rejuvenated” in Guyana.

Ramjattan denied that he was involved in any process to rig the elections.

“I can speak on behalf of the Alliance For Change (AFC), we will not have any rigged elections in Guyana.

“I have absolutely nothing to do with any rigged elections in Guyana and I can speak on behalf, as leader of the Alliance For Change, and I am absolutely certain that my partner does not have anything to do with it, and that is why we want the recount and we want everything else to ensure that there is going to be absolutely a democratic Guyana,” Ramjattan stated.