Acting Chief Justice Ian Chang has granted leave for the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/C) to file an elections petition after an ex-parte application was submitted by the Party to the Supreme Court.The following statement was issued by the PPP/C last evening:
On Tuesday, PPP/C Member Ganga Persaud submitted an ‘ex-parte application for leave to file an elections petition’.
Legal procedure dictates that before the elections petition can actually be filed, the Party must seek permission from the Court to file the petition.
By submitting an ex-parte application, the Party is submitting an application for leave/permission to be granted to move forthwith filing the elections petition.
According to PPP/C Executive Member Anil Nandlall, now that leave is granted, the elections petition will definitely be filed before the week is over.
In the application for leave, which was by way of an affidavit, Persaud identified Anil Nandlall, former Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister; Priya Manickchand, former Education Minister; Bibi Shaddick, Pro Chancellor of the University of Guyana; Adrian Anamayah; Charles Ramson Jr; Latchmi Rahamat and Euclin Gomes as the Attorneys to represent him in this cause.
The elections results disclosed by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) show that the PPP/C gained 202,694 votes while the A Partnership for National Unity+Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) gained 207, 200.
The other contesting political parties: the Independent Party, the National Independent Party, The United Force and the United Republican Party gained 344, 262, 1080 and 432 respectively.
Since before the elections results were officially declared and gazetted, the PPP/C made several requests to the elections 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 Elections 2015 were massively rigged in favour of the APNU+AFC coalition.
Some points noted were that “valid ballots were wrongly deemed as rejected”; “Statements of Poll [SoPs] used to ascertain the results contain arithmetic errors”; “multiple voting by persons”; “persons whose names were not on the OLE were allowed to vote”; “persons impersonated and voted for those persons”; “ballot attendants and polling agents of the PPP/C were prevented from accompanying the ballot boxes”; “fraudulently concocted SOPs” and “Returning Officers of nine of the ten polling districts unlawfully refused requests by PPP/C agents to conduct a final general count”.
The application further pointed out that a GECOM Commissioner, Sase Gunraj, attested to many of the irregularities and discrepancies observed.
It also highlighted that even the Chief Elections Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield acknowledged that there were at least 490 stations affected by the fake SOPs and despite this, he went ahead and announced the preliminary elections result.
Subsequent to that incident, a PPP/C delegation met with GECOM officials to discuss the irregularities and it was then the Chairman, Dr Steve Surujbally, gave an undertaking to open 21 boxes to verify the results.
According to the application, two GECOM Commissioners informed the PPP/C that the decision to open 21 boxes was later recanted with no reasons given.
Meanwhile, amid these allegations of rigged elections, the international community, elections observers and other stakeholders have accepted the results, with some having conceded that the elections were free and fair.
Despite the negative atmosphere in which the PPP/C dwells [deals] with calls from all sections to quit its mantra of rigged elections, the Party is still holding out and maintaining that Guyanese were robbed of their right to a free and fair democratic process and that Guyana is now being governed by a “de facto” Administration.