…condemnation grows over attempts to ‘hijack’ elections in Guyana
In what can be described as a clear violation of Guyana’s electoral laws, the Returning Officer (RO) for District Four (Demerara-Mahaica), declared unverified results as the controversy into the verification of the District’s Statements of Poll (SOPs) continue.
Guyanese voted in the constitutionally overdue elections since Monday and all the districts, with the exception of District Four, have followed the clearly outlined process of verifying each SOP before the RO made their declaration of results.
Marred by controversy
The declaration of results for electoral district number four has been marred by controversy every step of the way. Starting on Tuesday, when RO Clairmont Mingo complained of tiredness and suspended the verification until Wednesday. However, on Wednesday, Mingo fell ill and was briefly hospitalised, which stalled the process again.
Nevertheless, the RO went on to declare results even before the process of verification and tabulation was completed or even recommenced.
This brought strong objections from all the contesting political parties, with the exception of the Governing coalition – which the results favour.
General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), Bharrat Jagdeo, said that the declaration by Mingo is in contravention of the law and with record numbers of international and local observers, the Government is stealing the elections.
“So instead of the verified Statements of Poll where APNU(/AFC) got 114,000, they now have APNU(/AFC) at 136,458 so they added 22,000 to the APNU (/AFC) column when the PPP was 80,000. Now it’s come down to 77,329; so that will give a 50-something thousand difference exactly what we had. We had 52,000 lead,” Jagdeo said shortly after the declaration was made public.
“So this is the manufactured figure now that went out on the declaration by Mingo. Fraudulent…so now I expect that the observers would start speaking. This is totally fake. A fraudulent declaration by 22,000 added out of nowhere. Not verified,” he added.
Jagdeo went on to question the figures presented by Mingo. The PPP/C released all of the SOPs for Region Four and based on that indication, the Party amassed enough votes to take the Presidency.
“They sat and looked at what the size of the margin of the PPP was and then made a declaration to do that without verifying. This is thievery right before your eyes. Now the international community has seen it,” he said.
Recount
Following the declaration of the unverified results, Jagdeo indicated that the party was left with no other choice than to request a recount of the entire region. He explained that they have been unable to officially submit their request to the RO since he left the building shortly after declaring the results. However, the observers, as well as foreign diplomats, have been briefed on the next step.
“This is totally fake, pay no attention to this. Check the SOPs for yourselves. See how they are going to get away from all this SOPs. Let GECOM provide the SOPs to support this. Now I think the next move is to deny the recount. Now that the declaration has been made we don’t have the choice but do that to make a request for a recount…if we don’t do that, then they can go ahead and say that the PPP didn’t request anything. We going to request a recount in all the boxes if we can’t get a declaration on the basis of which one were altered,” he noted.
The former President said that in the normal situation, the RO would call out the numbers on all of the SOPs which party agents would verify and accept or raise objections. On the basis of that, they would request recounts if they are not satisfied. But in this case, the parties were not afforded the opportunity to do that in relation to District Four.
He added that the parties also never received a copy of the declared results nor were they told of it. Rather, they learnt of it via a release from the Department of Public Information.
“This is a blatant theft. We have to be prepared to fight. We are going to do whatever it takes. The international community is here, they are very strong, and they are very upset. This is a threat to Guyana but we also can’t take this sitting down. If we allow this to succeed then a corrupt cabal can take over our country. This is not a banana republic,” Jagdeo contended.
Protests against unverified results
Just after noon, reporters were stationed outside of the Ashmin’s building at the corner of High and Hadfield Streets, Georgetown, which houses the Office of the Region’s Returning Office as well as GECOM’s Command Centre, when they heard a loud commotion in the building. When the media entered the building, ongoing, was a shouting match between the PPP/C, the smaller parties, and members of the governing coalition.
The reason behind that was the declaration of the unverified results. RO Mingo apparently entered into the room where verification was supposed to be ongoing, told observers and agents alike that he would be making a declaration of the results.
This led to objections from all of the stakeholders but he still persisted. The combined parties, with the obvious exception of APNU/AFC, began to protest shouting “No” while he stood from the third floor of the building reading out numbers which would later be declared as the official results from District Four.
Meanwhile, Change Guyana Presidential Candidate Robert Badal said Mingo’s actions are akin to rigging of the elections.
“We really don’t know what is happening because nobody with authority is giving a statement. It is a totally flawed declaration…it is tantamount of rigging an elections. We want to see all the SOPs being disclosed so that it is cleared and opened,” he said.
Missing Chairperson
Glaringly absent from the drama that unfolded at the Command Centre was Chairperson of GECOM, Retired Justice Claudette Singh. In addition, the Commission has been deafeningly silent on all that transpired with the tabulation and verification of Region Four’s results.
Representatives from all of the parties tried throughout the day to meet with the Chairperson in an effort for her to oversee the process but the calls went on deaf ears.
Following the declaration, the PPP/C secured an injunction from the High Court to order compliance with the laws but the Chair was inaccessible for those papers to be served.
Later in the evening, Singh exited the building from the back entrance.
Consequences
With the international community safely observing the elections in Guyana, Jagdeo said that the unverified declarations would be met with sanctions – something the PPP/C would see to the end.
Laptop and flash drive fiasco
After the high drama at the Command Centre on Wednesday, that is, Mingo being hospitalised and Deputy CEO Roxanne Myers coming with a flawed spreadsheet, the verification process was suspended. However, CEO Lowenfield sought to restart the process by getting Deputy Returning Officers (DRO) to come out and work. The process recommenced late Wednesday night but encountered difficulties shortly after.
The Data Clerk that was assisting the DRO complained of being tired and it was agreed that they would take a break. After the 15 minutes break, when work was supposed to resume, the Clerk said he could not function anymore and took a laptop along with a flash drive and left the room.
Eyebrows were raised following the removal of the items and it was later discovered that the Clerk was in another room in the building, working on the computer with the flash drive inserted.
Presidential Candidate for the PPP/C, Dr Irfaan Ali, explained that it was a delaying tactic on the part of the Commission.
“It is challenge after challenge to get GECOM to verify and have Region 4 results declared. The process was stopped many occasions for different reasons. The GECOM officer who was calling out the figures said he was tired. He came out and said he would speak to the CEO and we asked where was the CEO and he said he was not in the building. He proceeded to pick up the flash drive and a computer and proceeded out of the room. Moments later we found him in another room with the computer opened, with the flash drive plugged in and working on it,” Ali reported.
In addition, the Parties’ representatives were asked to leave the room which the staffer was in but they refused.
“We can for no reason understand why we had a commitment from the CEO and there were no internal arrangements made for shifts at that point. Our concern is the flash drive not so much the details…what is suspicious is that it was observed that gentleman continued to work on the flash drive. We took pictures of the screen we were looking at up to the point we stopped. This process needs to be completed,” The Citizenship Initiative Presidential Candidate Rondha Lam said.
Following that commotion, the verification process was suspended until 09:00h on Thursday.
Bomb threat
When 09:00h came on Thursday, no recounting had started. Instead, what the Parties got was a bomb threat.
Assistant Commissioner Edgar Thomas told reporters that they received reports of a bomb threat and ordered the building evacuated.
