–URP Leader tells elections CoI

THE General Secretary of the United Republican Party (URP), Rawle Aaron, witnessed employees of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) using photocopied Statements of Poll (SOPs) to tabulate results for District Four.

He gave testimony to this effect yesterday, as he appeared before the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the March 02, 2020 General and Regional Elections.

Aaron told the Commission of the instances when GECOM officials, including Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo, attempted to use information from a spreadsheet for the tabulation and verification process.

He recalled that there was then a Court Order that mandated GECOM to use the original SOPs.

According to Aaron, on March 06, when the tabulation and verification process was moved to GECOM’s Head Office, Kingston, Mingo, and other GECOM staffers began using SOPs.

He said, however, that those SOPs had numbers which did not correlate with the figures on SOPs in the possession of party agents.

Aaron said that he, and other party agents objected and pointed out the inconsistencies. He testified that they were told that they could follow on their SOPs, but GECOM was using its own SOPs.

The URP General Secretary said that he and other party agents requested to see the SOPs that were being used. He told the CoI that those SOPs used by Mingo did not carry distinct features of an authentic SOP.

“They were photocopies, they felt different and looked different,” he recalled.

Aaron said that he, therefore, objected to the use of the SOPs and “withdrew” from the process after the state of affairs continued.

He then took his concerns to the media after which he had to be escorted home by police, because persons who are believed to have been supporters of APNU+AFC made threats of bodily harm towards him.