APNU/AFC somersaults on use of SoPs for tabulating results

…pushed them in 2015, but now says “unnecessary”

A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) is claiming “victory” at the recently concluded General and Regional Elections based on data from a mysterious spreadsheet that derailed the statutory process of tabulating the Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) results. One accusation levelled against the Returning Officer (RO) who produced the report was that spreadsheets with unverified numbers favouring the APNU/AFC were introduced during the verification process, rather than the Statements of Poll (SOPs).

It was this, stakeholders have said, that caused the process to be halted and resulted in the present state in which Guyana has found itself. However, back in 2015, then Opposition Leader David Granger had said clearly that the Statements of Poll (SOPs) are the primary source for verifying the results from the various districts and sub-districts.
“In this country, we have a system in which Statements of Poll have to be published at each Polling Station, after the ballots are counted. So, in any event, this information is known. It is not secret information that is possessed by GECOM,” Granger had said during a press conference in 2015.
“Information is known because the law requires publication at the Polling Stations, once the count has been done,” Granger had also said in his statement, which was recorded and captured on video.

Meanwhile, current Attorney General Basil Williams had also touted the importance of the SOPs back in 2015. In a video recording from that time, Williams had also said that the Returning Officer for the district must ascertain the votes in the presence of representatives from the parties.
“Vote from 6 to 6, after 6 you have the counting exercise. That counting exercise is attended to by representatives of all the political parties. At that exercise, the Presiding Officers and representatives of the parties sign a Statement of Poll. These things are then posted outside the Polling Station and they amount to a declaration of the result at that station.”
“After this is done the Presiding Officer has to send everything, the ballot box, the ballots and the envelope, to the district. When it reaches the Returning Officer of the district, he has to do a similar exercise, in the presence of representatives from the political parties and ascertain the number of votes for each list contesting the elections.”
Williams in his recorded statement had also said that by noon of the day following the declaration, requests for a recount can be made.
Despite their utterances in 2015, political parties observing tabulation at the GECOM Command Centre on March 4 and 5 had raised concerns that APNU/AFC was seeking to have spreadsheets rather than SOPs used for tabulating the results, thus deviating from the process.
In a letter formally outlining his concerns about the process, People’s Progressive Party (PPP) General Secretary Bharrat Jagdeo had noted that it was RO Clairmont Mingo’s actions and attempts to intermix results that differed from the SOPs in the possession of everyone else that contributed to the stoppage of the verification.
“In relation to district 4, the Section 84 (1) verification process did not run smoothly. It was interrupted intermittently by the illness, exhaustion or unavailability of election officials. On one occasion, it was interrupted by the need to locate 20 SOPs in relation to certain votes which had been recorded on a spreadsheet produced by the Returning Officer, Mr Clairmont Mingo.”
“Those votes purported to represent the votes recorded in the corresponding SOPs, but they were far different from the carbon copies of the SOPs which the counting agents had in their possession. When the SOPs were eventually produced, they [matched] the carbon copies in the possession of the counting agents and demonstrated that the spreadsheet was significantly inaccurate.”
The rest of what happened is now history. The count was suspended and Returning Officer for Region Four, Clairmont Mingo fell ill. On the evening of March 5, Chief Elections Officer, Keith Lowenfield had committed to having the verification process run throughout the night until completion. However, this was never done, which was a clear violation of the law.
An injunction was sought and granted by former Attorney General Anil Nandlall after Mingo returned to the Command Centre and attempted to declare unverified results for district four from the General and Regional Elections.
Mingo, however, unilaterally declared the results – to the surprise of the main political Opposition, smaller political parties, elections observer missions, and the wider international community. Since then, the coalition Government has been isolated by condemnation and warnings from the local and international community.