The A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) said that its Statement of Polls (SoPs) do not reconcile with the Guyana Elections Commission’s SoPs, prompting the party to renew its calls for the election body to provide its original hard copies for verification.
“After a full and careful examination, we have found it impossible to reconcile the two set of SoPs since in a significant number of instances, the SoPs are not identical,” the APNU said in a letter it addressed to GECOM Chairman, Dr Steve Surujbally.
The letter which was copied to the Chief Election Officer, Goocool Boodoo stated that the party will be renewing its request to access the original hard copies of the SoPs in GECOM’s possession.
The findings by APNU come nearly a month after they received digital copies of GECOM’s SoPs. The APNU had begun their calls for the verification of the SoPs leading up to the declaration of the results of the November 28 polls.
APNU had refused to accept the results of the declaration, claiming several discrepancies in the SoPs, especially in Region Four. The coalition’s contention is that there were SoPs that were of particular interest. Those, the party added, were not reflective of the data listed on the party’s SoPs.
Dr Steve Surujbally
Accusing GECOM of several acts of mismanagement and breaches of procedure, the APNU leaders and supporters took to the streets in protest.
However, GECOM had defended its election management leading up to the declaration of results and even beyond that. Dr Surujbally confidently declared that the electoral process was not compromised.
But the APNU continued its protest action and demanded GECOM release its SoPs so that it can conduct a verification exercise. GECOM ignored the calls.
However, the election body relented and released its SoPs, days after several APNU supporters were injured when they were shot with rubber bullets on December 6 by police during an illegal protest.
This, coupled with pressure from the Private Sector Commission (PSC), led to the commission releasing its SoPs. The PSC was concerned about the effect of the demonstrations on businesses in Georgetown, and met with GECOM’s chairman.
GECOM distributed its SoPs on DVDs to the parties that contested the elections.
While the APNU was not satisfied with this form of the SoPs, it went ahead with the verification process. Now that APNU has claimed that it found discrepancies, the coalition wants the hard copies to verify. But a source inside GECOM told this publication that the request is baseless since the SoPs are merely digital copies of their hard copies.
And Boodoo while acknowledging that a letter was received from the APNU, pointed out that the commissioners will have to decide whether GECOM will honour the APNU request.
The APNU in the meantime said it is willing to scrutinise the hard copies on GECOM’s premises.
