…PNC rigging
If anyone thought your Eyewitness was crying wolf when he insisted the PNC would resort to rigging to remain in power, he hopes they’ve been following their shenanigans in the last few days. As he said yesterday, it was 1997 déjà vu all over again!! They’d already fiddled with the voters’ list to give them a head start with fake bodies. They’d discouraged PPP supporters from voting by placing all sorts of obstacles in their way – figuring that even 5 each from 2300 polling stations would give them a two-seat advantage!!
But like in 1997, they had a Plan B in place in case the PPP mobilised and garnered support way beyond what they’d achieved in 2015. And as this come to pass, the plan kicked in. First, there were a few skirmishes: claiming that Disciplined Forces votes in Region 3 weren’t mixed in at Vergenoegen and some spoiled votes were given to the PPP in Parika. It wasn’t substantial in the grand scheme of things, but it was enough to hold up the declaration from a region that always gave the PPP a big bump.
The centrepiece of Plan B, however, was always going to be Reg 4. It’s where the PNC’s biggest block of supporters are located and therefore provided the most cover for sleights of hand. Or rigging of elections. In 1997, the PNC had rushed the polling stations, but this time, tipped off by Volda’s “nightshift” call, this was abandoned. So when the declarations from the outlying regions came in and showed the PPP racing ahead and increasing their gap, Plan B unfolded. The Reg 4 Returning Office (RO) – who certifies the count from the SOPs – after declaring he’d continue through the night, suddenly said he was tired and sent everybody home by 9 pm! Counting ceased!
The fella never showed up till late the next morning and soon promptly declared he was ill and had to be rushed to the hospital. While he was being attended to, the GECOM PRO declared the count had been halted. But when he was discharged and returned to the counting centre, a strange thing had happened. Suddenly, the count from the SOPs was being read off from a spreadsheet, which varied from the SOPs in the possession of the PPP and other parties’ representatives!!
By now, it was apparent that the PNC had to produce over 50,000 bodies to overcome the lead the PPP had built up from the outlying regions. And this was how they’d do it: by violating the very clear law that the RO check had to be done directly from the SOPs!!
This was chutzpah to the max!! Shameless!!
…but stymied
Because Granger had been allowed to get away with the nonsense about “majorities” over the NCM – even after the CCJ’s judgement declared his moves illegal – it obviously made him believe he could repeat this nonsense in front of the entire diplomatic corps and their election observers!! He forgot he might be a big fish, but it was in a very small pond. And while they might’ve overlooked his shenanigans with the SOPs, if it were in some footnote in a bureaucratic report, they had to act when it was playing out literally in front of their eyes!! This was eye-pass!!
The PPP and the other parties stood their ground and demanded that the law be followed – and they were supported by the observers and the foreign missions. The GECOM Commission met and the CEO had to accept that the counting would proceed from the SOPs.
But this is the PNC we’re dealing with and we still cannot afford to exhale. Today, expect them to throw some more curves.
Even after the declaration!! It’s in their genes!!
…and shameful
Doesn’t GECOM feel ashamed to hear the EU Observer Head describe his experience when he went to one of the cow pasture tents they used as a polling place?
The fella said two cows actually came to vote. Like the rest of us??
