Latest update November 23rd, 2024 1:00 AM
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“Assaulted” Presiding Officer plans to go through with matter
Presiding Officer, Onika Beckles, who claims to have been assaulted by People’s Progressive Party Candidate Odinga Lumumba on Monday last says she plans on following through with the matter.
Beckles told Kaieteur News that she has given a statement and submitted a medical form to the officers at the East La Penitence Police Station. 
She further told this publication that a man claiming to be a senior Government functionary (name given) called her to apologize, but she did not accept it.
According to Beckles, she has contacted her lawyer Nigel Hughes and is seeking legal advice from him.
Beckles was forced to call in the police at an Aubrey Barker Road Polling Station after she was admittedly shoved against a wall by Lumumba who also verbally abused the young woman.
Lumumba also grabbed the camera phone from an Electoral Assistance Bureau (EAB) observer who began recording the altercation and threw it to the floor destroying it in the process.
An angry Lumumba subsequently apologized to the election observer and offered to replace the phone saying that he was angry at the time.
Beckles said that the problem came about when she refused to allow a PPP observer to switch places with another observer from that party.
The woman said that she was allowing the observers all day to enter the polling to hand out food and drinks to their workers.
Beckles said that it was some time after 15:00hrs that the observer came and said that she needed to switch positions with another observer so that she could vote.
Beckles said that she had no problem but she requested of the observer a certifying letter from GECOM. The woman, she said, began behaving unruly.
Minutes later Lumumba came and pushed the woman aside and barged into the polling station.
The police were called in and vigilant onlookers stood guard at the polling station.
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