APNU accuses GECOM of ignoring letters about PPP’s “glaring” electoral fraud

Last Updated on Saturday, 30 May 2020, 15:30 by Denis Chabrol

A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) General Secretary, Joseph Harmon on Saturday assailed the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) for failing to respond to at least 11 letters containing allegations of fraud committed at the March 2, 2020 general and regional elections.

“You have a right to know what happened to your votes ands why persons who were not entitled to vote at your elections voted. You have a right demand of your elections commission answers to questions raised by your political representatives. we cannot sail calmly into the end of the recount while your concerns go unanswered and a ,assige farudleiny operation carried on your electoral process, an operation which is systemic and pervasive,” he said.

The APNU+AFC, he said, has  formally asked GECOM to conduct an “urgent investigation” and provide a response before the tabulation of results for Region 7 (Cuyuni-Mazaruni) and Region 8 (Potaro-Siparuni) are announced. Unofficial results show that of the 9,592 valid votes cast in Region 7, APNU+AFC got 4,813 and the People’s Progressive Party 3,728.

In a statement that was not subjected to questions by the media, Harmon suggested the coalition’s agents uncovered “massive fraud” but based on the actual figures he listed, they accounted for just over 1,000 votes.

Up to Friday evening, unofficial statistics show that of the 287,358 votes that were recounted up to then, 2,673 were rejected.

Harmon said the many irregularities have translated to a “qualitative” impact on 92,000 votes based on missing poll books, people voting, counterfoils with the same number, wrong list in ballot boxes for votes cast at different places, ballots for one region cast in another region,

“My fellow Guyanese, as you can see our intervention with GECOM has been based on evidence and we require GECOM to act in a timely manner on these investigations as the cumulative impact of these irregularities and fraud has a bearing on the validity of all of the votes,” he said.

Others are:

• In ballot box 7079,  352 ballots were issued but 377 discovered in the ballot box at the recount
• In ballot box 7024,  50 counterfoils were missing, suggesting that 50 ballots taken away and cast elsewhere
• In ballot box 7003, the wrong list of electors was found in that box
• In ballot box 7060, the list of electors that was ticked off for another station was found in that boix and seven extra ballots were cast in excess of the voters list
• Flagrant misuse of oaths of identity, and persons having cast ballots without identification and without evidence of oaths of identity, amounting to 327 cases in 27 ballot boxes
• 83 cases in which the Form 19 was not found in the boxes, and persons voted without identification or oaths of identity

Charging that there has been a high rate of such instances of voter irregularities being uncovered in the last four days, Harmon said GECOM has not responded to follow-up letters and there has been “no positive response from the Commission.”

“The frequency of these occurrences and more have led APNU+AFC to the inescapable conclusion that massive electoral fraud has taken place,” said Harmon.

Based on what he said were GECOM’s “own records at the recount”, Harmon accused the PPP of engineering electoral fraud. “We believe this is proof of electoral fraud and tampering of the ballot boxes and call for an immediate investigation to be launched as this impacts the credibility of the electoral process,” APNU+AFC told GECOM in one of its letters.

He said the Immigration Department has so far confirmed that 90 percent of people who were identified as having been overseas on March 2, 2020- polling day. “There is electoral fraud which your own records is making even more glaring,” he said.