NO apology will be forthcoming from the Alliance For Change (AFC) for its role in the 2020 General and Regional Elections rigging attempts, until the party conducts a review of what it did during those elections.

This is according to Leader of the AFC, Nigel Hughes, who sought to quell public backlash over his refusal to apologise when the question was put to him at his party’s recent press conference.

“An apology is premised on the fact that there is a fault. I’m not saying that we will not find faults, but when we have completed that process of reviewing what we did and didn’t do during the period in office, and similarly, what we did and didn’t do during the 2020 elections, then we can have a discussion on that [apology],” he said.

A commission of inquiry along with regional and international electoral observer missions have concluded that key members of the AFC, who were part of the APNU+AFC coalition, were part of an elaborate plot to rig the 2020 elections.

Three former members of the AFC, Trevor Williams, Dominic Gaskin and Leonard Craig, and one current member Michael Carrington have all said publicly that the APNU+AFC lost the 2020 elections and that there were attempts to change the results to deny the PPP/C its victory.

Hughes is however maintaining that he is ignorant of any involvement of the AFC, stressing instead that the party will have to conduct an investigation into what it did.

“But when you ask me that question, you’re asking me to prejudge what the Alliance For Change is going to find in its investigation into what it did before. And at the end of that process, we will have a very clear idea of our steps, missteps, and steps that were favourable. But you cannot, at this point, want me to give a blanket apology about the 2020 election,” he stated.

Apart from Vice-President Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, former AFC executive member and minister, Dominic Gaskin, has also called on the AFC to issue an apology for its role in trying to rig the elections.

Observer groups, which includes the Organisation of American States (OAS) led by former Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding had also concluded that there were clear attempts by the APNU+AFC to rig the polls despite the PPP winning by more than 17,000 votes.

“I have never seen such a transparent effort to alter the results of an election,” Golding had said.

The APNU+AFC had prematurely declared victory in the March 2020 General and Regional Elections, despite projections showing a win for the PPP/C.

Attempts were then made by top GECOM officials to declare fictitious numbers to hand the coalition a victory, despite a recount showing the PPP/C winning by more than 17,000 votes.

After the attempts at rigging failed, the APNU+AFC quickly walked back on its claims that it had won the elections and embarked on a campaign to discredit the polls, claiming widespread fraud and Russian interference – none of which has ever been proven.