The Guyana Police Force on Tuesday night offered a clumsy defence of inaccurate departure information of private citizens it gave to the Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Justice (rt’) Claudette Singh suggesting that persons may have left Guyana legally but somehow came back in the country illegally by way of backtrack routes to vote.
This comes as more persons come forward to dismiss the claims made by the Coalition APNU+AFC and Police Commissioner Leslie James, who is also the country’s Chief Immigration Officer.
On Tuesday, an agent for APNU+AFC claimed that prominent attorney Devindra Kissoon was out of the country and did not vote. Mr Kissoon, in fact, voted at the African Museum in Bel Air Park and was one of the observers for the American Chamber of Commerce AmCham Guyana) on elections day. Mr Kissoon was also one of the Attorneys in the case in which Ulita Moore, one of the APNU+AFC candidates, went to the court to block the recount.
The Police Commissioner gave Justice Singh a list of 172 persons he said was not in the country on elections day. APNU+AFC claimed the persons were marked off as having voted, but there is no proof of that. GECOM itself did not bother to check the list before it asked the immigration authorities to check it.
It has been reported in the press that persons who are on the list have been coming forward to dismiss the Immigration claims that they were out of Guyana on elections day.
The Police Force Tuesday night said the data it produced was “generated through its Record system which includes an Electronic Border Management System.”
But then came a confusing statement that this system “does not record persons who travelled illegally.”
And so the Police Force has now created another scheme to the saga over the March 02 elections, effectively suggesting that persons left Guyana legally and came back into the country illegally and voted.
The Police defence was in direct response to an article published in the independent newspaper Kaieteur News which pointed to three of the first set of persons to come forward and reject the claims they were out of the country.
The newspaper gathered the names from videos posted on Facebook with the persons saying they are in Guyana.
The persons include Mr. Amos Bhola, born on June 15, 1940, from the Essequibo Coast, who the Police Commissioner claimed left Guyana on April 18, 2019, and was not in the country on March 02. Mr Bhola said his visa expired in 2013 and he never left the country since then.
Another person is Andreanna Indira Persaud, born on August 22, 1981. The Police Commissioner told the GECOM Chair that Persaud left Guyana on November 10, 2019, and was not in the country to vote. Persaud, from the Essequibo Coast, said she never travelled to go anywhere and did vote on March 2.
Now more persons are coming forward. The News Room has received several claims from persons whose names appear on the list from the Police Commissioner.
Nishani Bissessar, from Vergenoegen, East Bank Essequibo went as far as to prepare an “Affidavit of Existence and Presence” to debunk the claim made by the Police Commissioner that she left Guyana on December 2, 2015 and was not in Guyana on March 02.
“I reject any such contention as being untrue and I reiterate on March 2nd, 2020 I was in the jurisdiction of Guyana and I voted…,” she stated in her affidavit.
Others include: Karisma Raghunandan, who it was claimed left Guyana on April 18, 2019; Kumarie Singh, who it is claimed left Guyana on August 15, 2014; Sydney Douglas Jones, who it is claimed left Guyana on April 07, 2016.
The Coalition APNU+AFC continues to slow down the national vote recount by making wild claims that persons who were out of the country were marked off as having voted.
“They call out a bunch of random numbers and ask if these numbers have been ticked,” said Nyall Jodhan, one of the counting agents for The Citizenship Initiative.
When persons voted on March 02, their names are either ticked or crossed off; in some instances, the names are both ticked off and crossed out.
The serial numbers of voters APNU+AFC agents call out in the recount have been proven to be persons who did not even show up to vote, hence their names are not marked off.
The agents claims that their “field research” tells them the serial numbers they are calling out are of persons out of the country and so the GECOM staff is forced to run through the list, check for all the numbers they call and see whether they are marked off as having voted or not and that takes a lot of time.
At the start of Tuesday’s recount, one agent from A New and United Guyana reported that at her counting station, the ANPU+AFC agent called out a list of 91 names from a single ballot box and after the tedious process of checking it was found that only 5 were marked off as having voted.
There was no proof then offered that the five persons were not in Guyana and voted.
This is the pattern that APNU+AFC continues with as the recount continues.
At the end of day 28, of the ballot boxes counted the PPP was ahead with 180, 732 votes as compared to APNU+AFC with 162, 557 votes.
There are three Districts to complete. There are 364 boxes left to be counted for District Four, 21 for District 6 and 25 for District 10.
