Gangsterism, crookery, deceit of APNU/AFC cause delays – Jagdeo

After waiting for more than 100 days for election results to be officially declared, Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo on Thursday said that the David Granger-led A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) has used gangsterism, crookery, and deceit in its attempts to rig the 2020 General and Regional Elections.

Jagdeo, who is also the General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), on Thursday afternoon, following another episode of drama at the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), said that by now all of Guyana knew that the PPP/Civic has convincingly won the elections, based on the verified results of the Caricom-supervised national recount.
He explained that “multiple attempts at rigging the elections have played out through various personalities and through various activities”, but assured supporters that the Party would not relent in its efforts to ensure that the will of the people was respected.
He lamented during a virtual media engagement that many citizens were wondering why was it that even though the results of the elections were widely known and accepted by all international and local observers, that after more than 100 days since the elections were held, the duly-elected Government was yet to be sworn in.

“The simple answer is the gangsterism, crookery of APNU/AFC, and the deceit that they have practised from the beginning, through Mingo’s inflation of numbers in their favour,” Jagdeo highlighted.
The PPP General Secretary said that when those efforts by Mingo failed to secure a win for the coalition, it then changed its narrative and moved to the Commission to pressure the Chairperson to annul the elections based on its unsubstantiated claims that dead and migrated persons voted in the elections.
“When the Chair made it clear that she had no jurisdiction to annul the elections, now that it is approaching the declaration stage; through their instrument Lowenfield and others, they have now approached the Court of Appeal in a disguised elections petition, hoping to thwart the will of the people,” he added.

Technicality
Referring to a statement by AFC leader Khemraj Ramjattan, Jagdeo highlighted that the coalition is hoping that somehow, “based on a technicality and possibly a favourable ruling of the Court, they can be declared the winner…not based on the elections, not based on the number of votes that people got, but on the basis of a technicality”.
“You can’t win elections on a technicality,” the former President argued.
Jagdeo related that citizens were anxiously hoping that the results would have been declared, paving the way for PPP/C’s Dr Irfaan Ali to be officially sworn in as Guyana’s ninth Executive President.
CEO Lowenfield on Thursday flouted his constitutional responsibility, which required him to submit his report of the results of the March 2 General and Regional Elections, as directed by the GECOM Chairperson, Retired Justice Claudette Singh.
The Commission was expected to meet on Thursday after being in receipt of the CEO’s report and then proceed to make an official declaration.
However, the Commission was unable to do so as the CEO did not submit his report, and also with the absence of APNU/AFC-appointed Commissioners Charles Corbin and Desmond Trotman, there was no quorum for the meeting to proceed.
Several stakeholders have expressed that this latest move by the APNU/AFC coalition is an abuse of the court process and another blatant attempt to prevent the official declaration of the results which would see the PPP/C forming the next Government.