With the national vote recount showing the PPP on course to victory with just over 300 boxes left to be counted, the incumbent Coalition APNU+AFC on Wednesday night appeared unwilling to accept defeat and suggested the elections should be nullified.
The recount figures tabulated at the end of Wednesday show the PPP in the lead with 187, 549 votes and APNU+AFC with 174, 499 votes.
The Coalition has been making a mountain of allegations seeking to discredit the electoral process which all of its leaders, including President David Granger, initially celebrated as being credible, free and fair.
“Any results emanating from this process cannot be considered credible because of the high incidence of fraud,” the Coalition said in a press statement.
As such, it suggested that the entire electoral process should be voided.
All foreign and local observers have hailed the March 02 vote as being credible and noted that the only problem arose was when the District Four Returning Officer broke the law in adding up the votes cast in his district.
On Wednesday, Timothy Jonas, Chairman of A New and United Guyana (ANUG) repeated that GECOM cannot now void the electoral process but has to declare a winner and any allegations raised about the process must be tried in the High Court by way of an elections petition.
The Coalition has claimed that the recount has revealed that the election of March 2, 2020, was riddled with fraudulent practices and listed these as “the dead voted, people out of the jurisdiction voted, many unstamped ballots, missing certificates of employment, missing poll books, ballots cast over and above the number on the OLE and other fraudulent practices.”
The Coalition has failed to provide evidence of its allegations of fraud; in cases where it claims the names of the dead or those out of the country were marked off as having voted, it tells the GECOM officer in the recount that it will provide the evidence later. It raised no such objection for all of the two months following the elections until the recount started.
In pressing its case, it sought to quote former PPP Attorney General Anil Nandlall in saying “once a fraud has been committed, it nullifies or voids the entire process.”
It then said it expects that “the PPP/C will not shift the goal post and will stick to this position.”
But it is the Coalition which has shifted the goal post after claiming victory and holding a victory party after the District Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo made his fraudulent declaration on March 6.
On March 02, after visiting many polling stations with his right-hand man Joseph Harmon, President David Granger stated that he had not received a “single complaint” at all the polling stations he visited.
He further said he observed that the staff are aware of their duties and performed their duties efficiently.
President Granger further said Guyanese should be “happy” that the democratic process was moving “smoothly” and that the international observers should have “nothing to complain about.”
He said that the Guyana Elections Commission administered the elections “as it is authorized to do” and it did so “in an efficient manner.”
