…APNU+AFC gives GECOM deadline to respond to irregularities
….says several lists of migrated voters were sent to electoral body for probe

THE APNU+AFC has stated that the party expects a response from the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) by today June 5, 2020 on how it will treat with a mountain of alleged irregularities uncovered during the national recount.

At a press conference on Thursday, APNU General Secretary, Joseph Harmon, said that since May 30, the APNU+AFC has dispatched over 11 letters to GECOM detailing the irregularities uncovered by party agents and requesting immediate investigation to verify their claims. “There has been no direct response by the Elections Commission to these letters. We sent another five letters to GECOM on the fraud that is piling up. The commission must, with certainty, make its position known on these issues that put the credibility of over 90,000 votes into question,” he said.

The list of irregularities highlighted by APNU+AFC include: counterfoils and ballots carrying the same number; ballots for one region cast in another; ballots cast for the dead and persons who have migrated; persons voting without proper identification; persons voting outside of their districts without employment documents; large numbers of improperly stamped ballots at locations where disciplined services members voted; missing poll books and documents from one polling station being found in the ballot boxes of another.

Harmon said that he expects that the physical recount process will be completed by Sunday, or early next week the latest, and GECOM needs to act now on the said concerns. He stated: “We will have to get a decision from GECOM on this matter and we are serving notice that we expect a decision by GECOM on these matters by the end of Friday June 5, 2020. They must say to us how they will treat with these matters, it is very important.”

PPP objects

Meanwhile, PPP/C Prime Ministerial Candidate, Mark Phillips, speaking to the media outside the Arthur Chung Conference Center (ACCC) on Thursday, said that Harmon’s pronouncement of a deadline amounts to interfering with the Constitutional rights of GECOM.

“GECOM is a constitutional body and, in the state of things today, at this final phase of the recount, we find it difficult to accept that a political party who contested the elections will want to issue an ultimatum to a constitutional body that enjoys independence from control of government or any other political party of organisation in Guyana,” he said.

He said that his party finds concerning the immigration list of 172 names submitted by the Guyana Police Force (GPF) as, from the PPP/C’s investigation, many of the said persons were in Guyana on E-Day.

Phillips stated that the GPF should not respond to the “demands” of the APNU+AFC. It was GECOM Chair, Justice (ret’d) Claudette Singh who wrote to the Commissioner of Police on May 22, 2020 requesting the information.

Harmon however, reminded that the recount exercise has four phases which begin with the physical counting of ballots, followed by the preparation of a report by the GECOM Secretariat to the Elections Commission. The commission will then deliberate on the report or any other report such as one coming from the CARICOM scrutinising team, followed lastly by a final declaration from the Chairperson of GECOM. In the letters sent to the commission, the APNU+AFC outlined cases of several persons not listed on the Official List of Electors (OLE) voting at the Corriverton Primary School; over 162 unused ballots unaccounted for at Number 77 Village on the Corentyne and 85 unused ballots missing from ballot box #9068 amongst others.

LIST OF MIGRANTS
Harmon said that the party has submitted several lists of migrated voters to GECOM for investigation and the Immigration Department has confirmed that almost 90 per cent of the said persons were not in the jurisdiction on E-Day. The APNU+AFC has accused the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) Opposition of being the masterminds behind the alleged electoral fraud and expects that hundreds more such cases will be unearthed in the remaining boxes.

Contrary, as it relates to the immigration matters, PPP/C has come out with some individual/s who state that they were named on the said list sent to the commission but can verify that they were in the country on E-day. They have also criticised the Immigration Department headed by Police Commissioner, Leslie James, questioning his impartiality.

However, the APNU+AFC maintains that 90 per cent of those on the list were not in the jurisdiction on March 2, 2020.  “As a tactic, the PPP now, they’re attacking the Immigration Department. The Immigration Department is the legal body that monitors movement in and out of the country, but here the PPP, they’re clutching at straws in the wind. That is the official record of the country and they’re trying to impute the character of the officer in charge of the records and the records themselves,” Harmon rebutted.

He accused PPP/C-nominated GECOM Commissioners of forcing a postponement of investigations into the said irregularities. Even so, he pledged that his party will continue to expose such cases and will not let up on its requests of the commission to investigate all irregularities as doing otherwise puts a barrier between Guyanese citizens and credible elections results.