The opposition is calling for an overhaul of the Guyana Elections Commission after expressing their dissatisfaction over the way the commission oversaw the recently-concluded general and regional elections.
AFC’s Raphael Trotman
The A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) has even gone further, calling for the resignation of the chairman of the commission, Dr Steve Surujbally. These calls were made when the party continued its protest actions outside of GECOM’s Kingston headquarters on Wednesday. “We are also asking for GECOM heads to resign with immediate effect, because we strongly believe that the elections were fraud,” one protestor said. APNU has been calling for a three- party verification of Statements of Poll (SOPs) after it identified several irregularities in Region Four on Election Day.
APNU has been calling on GECOM to release the SOPs from which they tabulated the results of the elections. Joining the APNU in calls for reform of GECOM was leader of the Alliance For Change (AFC) Raphael Trotman.
“The Alliance For Change will be calling for a complete overhaul and that can start with the removal of all the commissioners, because we are not impressed with any of them,” Trotman said at an AFC press conference on Wednesday.
Trotman said that the party was particularly disappointed in the silence from the opposition appointed commissioners.
He said that public confidence in GECOM is at an all-time low, “It is now public opinion, widespread opinion, that GECOM as an institution has failed.” GECOM’s poor ratings can be linked to the body’s refusal to produce the SOPs that were requested by APNU, he added.
“We find it strange, in fact, very suspicious, that GECOM would refuse to accede to a simple and legitimate request to share the certifying documents,” Trotman said.
AFC also joined APNU in calling for the SOPs to be released.
The shooting of protesters on Hadfield Street by riot police on Tuesday could have been avoided had GECOM acceded to the request by APNU, AFC contended.
Denouncing the actions of the police as “highhanded arrogance”, AFC said that GECOM has failed the people.
AFC said that it too is interested in the SOPs, since the party found discrepancies between the results that were declared and their copies of the SOPs.
“When I compared them with what GECOM declared, of the 23, three has the numbers transferred between the PPP and the TUF. Those are the errors we are seeing. We are very interested to find out if it is a human error, if the SOPs have been tampered with because obviously I have my SOPs,” AFC executive member David Patterson said.
