Recount shows PPP in the lead by over 13,000 votes – indicating a PPP win
-confirms Mingo's declaration fraudulent
With the last ballot box counted on Day 33 of the recount exercise, the results have shown that the Opposition People’s Progressive Party is in the lead with 13,069 votes.
According to figures published by The Citizenship Initiative, the PPP has so far gained 230,328 votes while the incumbent APNU+AFC amassed 217,259.
While the recount of the 2,339 ballot boxes was completed Sunday, the tabulation of the Statements of Recount (SORs) is still ongoing and it is expected to be completed Monday at the Arthur Chung Conference Center.
At the end of Sunday, there were 14 SORs from the general elections and 95 from the regional elections that remain to be tabulated.
Once this process is completed, the recount of Region 4 will have to be certified and the Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield now has to prepare a report for the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) on or before June 13.
The APNU+AFC has embarked on a campaign to discredit the March 2 polls after previously claiming victory, with their leader David Granger, even attending a victory party after the first fraudulent declaration by Region Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo.
In early March, Mingo fraudulently inflated the number of votes for the Coalition during the tabulation, but this was exposed by stakeholders who were in possession of the Statement of Polls (SOPs) from the 897 polling stations in the District.
In this regard, General Secretary of the PPP, Bharrat Jagdeo Sunday said the recount has verified the SOPs released by PPP and stakeholders.
“It has proven that the figures which Mr Mingo declared, they were heavily inflated so APNU will end up in Region 4 by 16,000 less than the Mingo figure – 23,000 they had inflated it by.”
He said the PPP will release figures from 60 more ballot boxes in Region Four where the votes were also inflated.
As the recount came to an end Sunday, the Presidential Candidate Irfaan Ali, the Prime Ministerial Candidate Brigadier (rt’d) Mark Phillips and Jagdeo greeted supporters who were outside the Conference Center and they celebrated “victory.”
In anticipation of the incumbent filing court action against the results, Jagdeo told the press that this will only add “more trauma” to the Guyanese population.
“They will try to alter the will of the people. They’re testing people’s patience. Not just in Guyana but I think the international community too has been pushed to the limit. They’ve been very generous in urging all parties to work together but I think most of them know who the transgressors are,” Jagdeo said.
He, however, noted that the PPP will fight all the way to end.
“So going to court will just delay the inevitable because I don’t see which court…the courts are indigenous. The judges organically live in our society and so they understand the dynamics and any sane person, a judge would look at all that has gone through, see the recount…see the results of the recount and then try and give APNU some injunction or something of the sort to block either the declaration or the swearing-in of the President….
“I can’t see any objective judge doing that sort of thing and if they do, it will easily be overturned by a higher court…we will fight tooth and nail, all the way for democracy,” Jagdeo noted.
When asked if the PPP will consider executive power-sharing should it go back in office, Jagdeo said it is not that simple.
“These matters are not that simple.
“This party on a daily basis is showing on a daily basis that its leaders are incapable of putting national interest and national consideration first, primary.
Their behaviour…I would not personally like to work with some of these people in any form, whether its executive power-sharing or not. They’ve lost all credibility. They go on TV and tell such blatant lies,” the General Secretary said.
Meanwhile, Presidential Candidate Ali urged supporters and all Guyanese to act responsibly as a declaration of the results nears.
“I want to assure all Guyanese that as we move towards the next stage of having the report submitted and the declaration, we must act in a responsible manner, we must act in a manner that our countrymen and women expect us to act in as leaders.
“We have to be gracious to each other and we have to move forward in building this country and taking this country forward.
“It has been a difficult situation in this country since the No-Confidence motion. Life was never the same. Business was never the same. It is time Guyana gets that space to breathe and move forward. Guyana deserves that,” Ali said.
