Georgetown: With APNU+AFC spokespersons clutching at straws daily as the recount shows that fraud was committed by Clairmont Mingo to benefit the party, Former Attorney General, Basil Williams contended that there is no provision in the law for a winner to be declared from the ongoing recount while the party’s attorney-at-Law Roysdale Forde accused the elections commission of electoral fraud.
Williams told reporters on Saturday that there is no law to allow the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to declare a winner based on the final figures coming out of the recount.
“I don’t know of any law that can allow for a winner to be declared from the recount… because none exist,” Williams said outside the Arthur Chung Conference Center.
Williams, who has lost almost all of the cases he represented for the government said the 10 declarations already made, including the disputed declaration by District Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo, are still legitimate.
He argued that the recount is serving no purpose except to reveal what really occurred on E-Day, a polling exercise that the party had previously said was free, fair and credible.
“The recount serves the purpose of highlighting what occurred on elections day and so far it has shown clearly massive deficiencies on the part of the opposition in gerrymandering these elections,” he added.
Initially, the APNU+AFC Coalition had supported the recount exercise but now claims that the party is surprised by allegations of “gerrymandering by the PPP.”
The recount was approved by GECOM following stark rejection of the declaration made by Mingo, with claims that the figures were fictitious and bumped up to give the Coalition a victory in the elections.
Williams is now shamelessly arguing that although the recount is ongoing, at the end of the process the fraudulent figures produced by Mingo will have to be used to declare a winner.
“Under the law, the only way it can be rendered not legitimate is by an elections petition which now calls into question the status and purpose of the national recount and how does it eventuate,” Williams stated.
He said it will be illegal if GECOM renders those declarations illegitimate, something Williams believes GECOM doesn’t have the legal power to do.
“GECOM cannot reverse those concluded decision… there are no laws attending to a national recount that could tell GECOM what to do at the conclusion of the recount.”
He said the discrepancies will have to be addressed by GECOM.
However, Government nominated GECOM Commissioner Vincent Alexander on Thursday told reporters that the total figures from the current national vote recount “should” automatically be used to declare a winner of the March 02 general and regional elections.
“All things being equal, it should be automatic” that the figures from current recount would be used to make a declaration.
“I don’t see us doing that,” Alexander said when pressed about possibilities of GECOM using the original declarations and not the recount figures.
Meanwhile, APNU Attorney-at-Law Roysdale Forde said “we [the coalition] take the view that whatever happens at the recount is final. In terms of its finality, and what it decides one way or another, yes,”
He was keen to note that a consequential steps includes an elections petition following the results of the recount, and this is something which has not been considered as yet by the coalition.
“Finality and acceptance of the results mean that you want to get to ask me whether the party will take at some point a future decision to file an elections petition. Should it go the opposite way, in relation to the PPP, would any party file an election petition? Those are questions we’re not in a position to answer now,” the coalition’s candidate shared.
With the notion of electoral fraud marring the process, Forde also sought to clear the name of the coalition by contending that it is the Elections Commission and not the coalition that conducts the elections.
“…a lot of questions I’ve been monitoring from time to time seem to place the responsibility to prevent such unlawful and fraudulent activities only on the side of APNU+AFC agents. But the people who conduct the elections is the elections commission,” he said.
Forde went on to explain that it is the Presiding Officers who are “responsible and in control of the polling place.”
“So it’s not APNU+AFC in charge of the polling place and objections can be made and we have made objections,” he added.
But most of the opposition parties and some of the observers believe that the objections being raised serve no purpose because the evidence is not being presented.
“When we are talking about electoral fraud, I want us to understand that it is a very broad concept. And it is systemic fraud that has been taking place in this elections,” Forde added.
The coalition has been raising objections daily, on the basis that dead people voted and even people who were not in Guyana on elections day.
The media has also not been in receipt of any evidence, but the party has said that it has submitted same to GECOM.
Over 130 countries have acknowledged the electoral fraud in Guyana and have embraced the recount.
US Ambassador to Guyana, Sarah-Ann Lynch had said there is no doubt that if a President is sworn in on the basis of electoral fraud that the United States will be forced to utilize sanctions that range from visa restriction to financial measures that could impact the Guyana’s economy.
You must be logged in to post a comment.