Attempt to steal blank SOPs for further rigging thwarted

General and Regional Elections

An attempt to secure blank Statements of Poll (SOPs), which could have been used to further corrupt the ongoing APNU/AFC controversy over the Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) vote tabulation was on Friday morning thwarted by alert and experienced officials of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C).
Chief Elections Scrutineer of the PPP/C, Zulfikar Mustapha turned up at the Guyana Elections Commission’s (GECOM’s) Head Office in Kingston, Georgetown, after receiving a call that attempts were being made to open the container which has the excess election materials stored.

Mustapha explained that he received a call from one of his agents that they were asked to go to GECOM to open the container to access blank SOPs and other elections materials that had been secured by locks from each of the 11 political parties contesting the March 2 General and Region Elections.
It was noted that only the APNU/AFC agent opened their lock. However, the container cannot be opened unless all of the parties unlock their individual locks.
The reason given for reopening the container, according to Mustapha, was that materials were needed to facilitate recounts in the regions where this was requested, something which he found suspicious.
“We found this very strange that after an election, after they would have declared the Region Four results, now they are calling for blank SOPs. Now we are very concerned and we are very suspicious of the activity at GECOM here,” the PPP/C’s Chief Elections Scrutineer stated.

In fact, Mustapha, an elections agent for several elections for the PPP/C, went on to note that he had participated in several recounts and none of them had ever needed unused, blank materials.
This was confirmed by former Attorney General, Anil Nandlall, who had accompanied Mustapha to the GECOM Head Office. He pointed out that recounts have nothing to do with those blank documents but is merely a review of a count that was already done.
“A recount has nothing to do with [the container and its contents]. A recount, as it says, is a review of a count already made. The count was already made at the place of poll by the Presiding Officers and the polling agents at the close of polls. So, if you want to review that the law is very clear, and English language is very clear.
A recount means a review of a count already done. It cannot involve and it does not contemplate the intrusion of alien material – something that was not counted before, and the law sets out how a recount or final count is done,” Nandlall explained.
The former AG further pointed out that during that process, ballot boxes are reopened and the ballots recounted to get a final figure.
“This request for something additional – a new Statement of Poll or a blank Statement of Poll – is sinister… We are deeply suspicious that there will be or there is an attempt to fabricate, duplicate and forge Statements of Poll because we know they are relying on Statements of Poll from Region Four that are inaccurate, that are a forgery,” he added.
According to Nandlall, it is for this reason that the Region Four RO, Clairmont Mingo, on Thursday abandoned the verification process of the SOPs and went ahead to declare the regional results without completing that process.
“That is why [the RO] can’t bring his real Statements of Poll and show it to the verification process and show it to the observers and show it to the parties. It’s obvious that they have different Statements of Poll from the ones that were actually use in the electoral process. They fabricated it and that is why they arrived at different numbers. This, I believe, was an attempt to get more Statements of Poll out so that they could insert the numbers and insert the people’s signatures for it to appear valid,” Nandlall asserted.
The former AG noted that this is another attempt to rig the election that has been uncovered by the PPP/C.
He went on to say that when they objected to the reopening of the container, the GECOM Official contacted Chief Elections Officer, Keith Lowenfield, via telephone and the CEO indicated that he was going to seek legal guidance and return at the Head Office at noon but never showed up – which Nandlall had predicted.