Georgetown: After being labelled a “Sanctimonious Gangster” amongst Caribbean leaders for his actions in support of the rigging of Guyana’s 2020 General and Regional, President David Granger on Sunday denied that the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) Coalition colluded to alter the results of the March 2 Elections.
After inviting selected media operatives at State House on Sunday, who are sympathetic to his administration, Granger was asked why the party has not released its statements of poll, and his response was that he was presented with a tabulation of the results from the statements of poll, which placed the Coalition in the lead.
“What I can say is that the spreadsheet that I was presented with, of the Statements of Polls (SOPs), indicated quite clearly that the numerical advantage was in favour of APNU+AFC. I cannot, I never saw the SOPs myself but I saw the spreadsheet and I was satisfied the spreadsheets were accurate,” the President stated.
The President made no mention of Region Four’s Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo fraud which was also delivered from a spreadsheet.
Granger said believes the statements of poll showed a general election victory for the APNU+AFC Coalition, and that Mingo’s results confirmed this purported victory. While acknowledging that he did not see the SOPs.
When asked about the many allegations of fraud, Granger said he will ask the Coalition to provide a report on the claims.
“The APNU+AFC Coalition, of which I am the Chairman, never colluded with anyone to interfere with the electoral process. We went into the elections like the PPP and other minor parties, and we expected an outcome in our favour. We campaigned very hard. It is certainly the most impressive and impactful campaign that I have ever been involved in. And we were awaiting the results like anyone else,” Granger said.
Political parties, including the People’s Progressive Party (PPP/C) and A New and United Guyana (ANUG) have accused GECOM of being compromised by a faction working conspiratorially to aid the Coalition. The European Union Electoral Observer Mission, in its report on the Guyana Elections said that GECOM acted in blatant violation of the law. This refers to the Region Four tabulation.
“By failing to take decisive action,” the report notes, “as the electoral process derailed into chaos and illegality, GECOM abdicated its constitutional duty to take all actions necessary to ensure compliance with the law by any of its officials, despite unequivocal powers to remove and exercise disciplinary control over them.”
To date, the President has not acknowledged that the Region Four tabulation which led to the March 5 declaration, and later vitiated by the Chief Justice, was rigged.
He had also not acknowledged that the Region Four tabulation which led to the March 13 declaration by Mingo, was rigged.
“If I wasn’t confident in the recount,” he said, “if I felt that there was fraud, that fraud would have been discovered.”
The recount showed a total of 116,941 votes for APNU+AFC and 80,920 votes for PPP/C, as opposed to Mingo’s fraudulent declaration, which handed 136,057 votes to APNU+AFC and 77,231 votes to PPP/C.
In doing so, the Returning Officer had conjured 15,427 more votes than were actually validly cast in the March 2 elections, taking the Region Four total from 202,077 to 217,425.
The revelations of the Region Four recount align with reports from five political parties, who all held that the Returning Officer presented clumsily doctored statements of poll during the tabulation, which inflated the votes for the Coalition, and deflated the votes for the PPP/C.
His manipulation of the results had also resulted in a false national lead being handed to the Coalition.
The recount shows that of the 460,352 valid votes cast, the incumbent A Partnership for National Unity+Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) has won 217,920 and the People’s Progressive Party 233,336.
The three ‘joinder’ parties- A New and United Guyana (ANUG), Liberty and Justice Party (LJP) and The New Movement (TNM) got a total of 5,214 votes.
You must be logged in to post a comment.