PPP/C files elections petition in High Court

The People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) on Wednesday filed an election petition with the High Court, questioning the validity of the May 11 General and Regional Elections, while asking the court to grant a number of orders including the nullification of the May 11, 2015 Election, as well as an order for new elections to be held, among several others.

The petition was filed by former Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister Anil Nandlall, on behalf of the applicant, PPP/C Executive Member Ganga Persaud, under the National Assembly (Validity of Elections) Act Chapter 1:04, and names as the defendants on the petition – Chief Elections Officer (CEO) of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Keith Lowenfield, and the representatives of the List of Candidates for all eight parties that contested the recently concluded election.

These are; Donald Ramotar for the PPP/C, Harold Lutchman for the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance for Change (APNU/AFC), Candidates Marissa Nadir for the United Force (TUF), Mark Benschop for the Independent Party (IP), Saphier Hussain-Subedar for the National Independent Party (NIP), Vishnu Bandhu for the United Republican Party (URP), Gerald Perreira for the Organisation for the Victory of the People (OVP), and Leon Saul of the Healing The Nation Theocracy Party (HTNTP).

In the petition, Persaud asks the court to “determine and declare that the whole of the electoral process was so flawed, contained so many procedural errors and so many instances of fraudulent and/or suspicious actions that the results that have been derived from the process cannot be credibly deemed to represent accurately the will of the electorate”.

Additionally, a request was made for the court to “determine and declare that the number of valid votes cast differs from the number of votes upon which seats in the National Assembly were allocated to that list, and further that the Guyana Elections Commission be directed to review the said lists and to accordingly reallocate such seat in accordance with Section 97 of the Representation of the People Act”.

The party is also asking the court to find that the refusal of the Returning Officers (ROs) to grant a final general count, as requested by the Counting Agents of the PPP/C is unlawful, null and void.

Furthermore, a request was made also for the recount of all ballots cast in the May 11 Election and for the court to grant such redress in conformity with the National Assembly (Validity of Elections) Act, Chapter 1:04, as may be just, appropriate and necessary, including, but not limited to, ordering fresh election to be held in the whole or part, for the purpose of rectifying the said results; and that the court give such incidental, ancillary and supplementary direction as the court may deem fit, including, without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing, the reallocation of the seats in the National Assembly.

Some of the grounds laid out in the election petition include valid ballots being wrongly deemed rejected; Statements of Poll (SOP) used to ascertain the results contain arithmetic errors; multiple voting by persons and impersonation of persons; PPP/C ballot attendants and polling agents being prevented from accompanying the ballot boxes; and the fact that there were fraudulently concocted SOPs.

Another ground highlighted in the court document states that many of the SOPs used by GECOM and the CEO to ascertain the results were not the Statements of Poll which emanated from the polling stations but were fraudulently concocted and inserted into GECOM’s machinery.

Prior to the filing of the petition, the party was required to file an ex-parte application, seeking permission from the court to file the actual election petition. The matter was heard before Chief Justice Ian Chang, who granted leave for the petition to be filed.

Now that the petition is filed, copies have to be served to the parties involved. A date will then have to be fixed by the court for hearing of the petition. The election results disclosed by GECOM shows that the PPP/C gained 202,694 votes while the APNU/AFC gained 207,200.

Since before the election results were officially declared and gazetted, the PPP/C made several requests to the election body for a total recount of the ballots but to no avail. In the application submitted to the court, the party identified a long list of particulars which led to the conclusion that the May 11 General and Regional Elections were massively rigged in favour of the APNU+AFC coalition.