PSC calls on stakeholders to accept result of recount

The Private Sector Commission (PSC) has joined mounting calls for stakeholders, including all the political parties, to accept the results emanating from the recount of the votes cast at the March 2 elections.

This comes on the heels of the caretaker A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) coalition signalling its intention on Wednesday night to reject the recount results.
“Any results emanating from this process cannot be considered credible because of the high incidence of fraud,” the incumbent party stated, while further calling for the March 2 elections to be voided.
However, in a brief statement on Thursday, the PSC called upon “…all the people of Guyana and each of the contesting parties to recognise and accept the result [of] the Recount, agreed to by both President David Granger and General Secretary of the PPP/C (People’s Progressive Party/Civic), Bharrat Jagdeo, as the final decision and declaration of the Guyana Elections Commission.”
The Commission, which is an accredited local observer of the electoral process, also urged Guyanese, regardless of their political preferences, to respect and uphold the rule of law. The PSC further called for them to keep the peace in the interest of their individual and collective well-being, as well as in the interest of Guyana.
With the national recount, which has some 241 ballot boxes remaining to be counted, near completion, results thus far show the PPP/C in the lead with 187,519 votes from the General Elections while the incumbent coalition has just about 174,000 votes.
More importantly, the exercise has exposed the fraudulent acts by Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) Returning Officer (RO), Clairmont Mingo. It has been unearthed that the embattled RO heavily inflated the figures in Region Four – the largest voting district in Guyana – in favour of the coalition to give the incumbent party a landslide lead over the Opposition PPP/C.
In fact, since this fraud has been detected, the APNU/AFC has changed its narrative, claiming now that votes were cast in the names of dead and migrated persons – something which has been proven false as scores of persons came forward after seeing their names on the APNU/AFC list as having migrated or being out of the jurisdiction on Election Day.
Testimonies of these individuals not only discredit the APNU/AFC’s list, but also the list submitted to the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) by the Police.
Late last month, the coalition submitted a list of some 200 names to GECOM, claiming that those individuals were not in the country on March 2 and, therefore, any votes cast in their names would be illegitimate.
GECOM Chairperson, Retired Justice Claudette Singh then wrote Police Commissioner Leslie James, seeking to determine whether those individuals were indeed out of the jurisdiction.
The Top Cop replied, indicating that based on records from the Immigration Department, 172 persons from the APNU/AFC list were not in Guyana on Election Day – an assertion which has since been proven false, as scores of people are coming forward to refute the information.
The Guyana Police Force (GPF) has since sought to clarify why the list it provided to GECOM has what appears to be numerous inaccuracies.
Pushing its agenda, the APNU/AFC again submitted another list of over 200 additional names of persons it is claiming were not in Guyana on Election Day.
The political grouping also submitted a list of persons it claimed were dead but yet their names were recorded as voted.
Moreover, this attempt now by the coalition to discredit the March 2 elections comes even as the incumbent administration, including its leader, caretaker President David Granger, initially lauded the elections as “credible” and even claimed victory using Mingo’s fraudulent declaration.
After visiting several polling stations in Region Four, Granger told reporters that he did not receive any complaint at the polling stations he visited and he observed the GECOM staff were aware of their duties and performed them efficiently.