Jagdeo vows to not allow APNU/AFC to sweep Mingo’s fraud under the carpet

General Secretary of the Opposition People’s Progressive Party/Civic, Bharrat Jagdeo, says his party will continue to expose the fraud perpetrated by embattled Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo.

Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo

The National Recount, which is nearing completion, with just some 165 ballot boxes from Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) remaining to be counted, has already unearthed that RO Clairmont Mingo heavily inflated votes in favour of the APNU/AFC to give the incumbent Coalition a landslide lead over the PPP/C .
According to Jagdeo during a virtual briefing on Friday, on the East Bank of Demerara, 87 instances have already been highlighted wherein Mingo give the Coalition some 5000 votes that were not validly cast by either inflating their figures or reducing PPP’s. This pattern, he noted, continues to be exposed even as more ballot boxes are recounted.

Region Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo

“Yesterday (Thursday) we started the East Coast, and again we saw the major inflation in the number of votes APNU got on the East Coast. We released some stations just [Thursday] and [Friday] morning just before midday, we had another seven boxes that had been inflated on the East Coast in favour of APNU,” he disclosed.
Jagdeo, who is also the Opposition Leader, further pointed out that the APNU/AFC coalition has been absolutely silent on Mingo’s fraud, which many stakeholders say is the reason behind Guyana not being able to have credible results more than three months after elections were held.
To this end, he vowed that his party would continue to expose these acts of fraud, which he described as a major heist and theft of the March 2020 elections.
“Mingo was the only fraud perpetrated in these elections, and so we will continue to — right down to the last box — expose Mingo’s fraud…and so if they think that they will just sweep it under the carpet, it’s not going to happen,” the Opposition Leader contended as he remind that the international community has already spoken out against these acts of fraud.
The Organisation of American States (OAS) only Thursday in a statement said it has no reason to doubt that the results emanating from the National Recount would be credible.
Meanwhile, the European Union Elections Observation Mission (EU EOM), in its final report to the Guyana Elections Commission, cited that the integrity of the entire electoral process was seriously compromised by the non-transparent and non-credible tabulation of results in the largest and decisive Region Four by senior GECOM officials acting in blatant violation of the law and High Court orders.
Nevertheless, with Region Four remaining to be counted, the national recount of the nine other regions shows the PPP/C in a landslide lead over the Coalition.
In South Georgetown, the incumbent Coalition lost 37 votes while the PPP’s figures remained the same; and in North Georgetown, the Opposition PPP gained 18 votes while the APNU/AFC lost 20.
Accordi to Jagdeo, the pattern in all these nine regions shows that the recount figures match the SOPs published online; and, as such, the party expects the same to come out of the count for the East Coast – where he says historically the PPP/C has won.
The recount exercise is scheduled to conclude on June 13, and GECOM is expected to make a declaration three days later.