GPSU elections results for Wednesday announcement

May 01, 2017 News

– despite no list of voters presented

The Guyana Public Service Union’s Executive Council Elections continues to be marred by controversy as the official announcement of the results is set for Wednesday without a list of eligible voters being presented.
This lack of information has been a critical area of contention for members of Team Change, which is led by Gregory Gaspar, a candidate vying for the position of President.
Believing that there is some scheme to alter the results in favour of incumbent President, Patrick Yarde, members of Team Change remained vigilant outside of GPSU Headquarters yesterday at the corner of Regent and Shiv Chanderpaul Drive.
At around 15:30hrs, Kaieteur News visited the location and spoke with members of Team Change who were camped out opposite the building. This newspaper was told that the counting of ballots was completed and that they were informed that results will be announced on Wednesday. However, a number of questions have remained about the elections process.
Based on the information received, ballots in Regions two, five, six, seven and ten were counted in the respective regions before being transported to the City. However, there are no Statements of Poll (SOP) accompanying these boxes.
It was explained that when a request was made to the Elections Officer, Herman De Souza for the SOPs, Gaspar and his team were told that the documents were inside of the particular boxes.
Members said that the Elections Officer needs to present the SOPs for the boxes which were counted on elections day, Thursday, April 27, 2017 and for those boxes coming from the outlying regions in order to verify the integrity of the results.
In addition, no list of eligible voters has been presented. Due to the absence of the list, there is no document to verify how many persons were entitled to vote and how many legitimate votes were casted at polling places or using roving ballot boxes.
Further, this publication was told that there is added concern regarding the ballot boxes coming from New Amsterdam, Region three and Region 10. Apparently, the group received reports that somewhere along the line the results might have been padded.
However, Yarde has refuted all claims that he is in any way tampering with the elections process.

The electoral process for the GPSU elections continues to be questioned

According to members of Team Change, from all indications, their Presidential Candidate, Mr Gaspar, is leading in the polls and it is this which is causing the delay of the elections results and the many inconsistencies which question the integrity of the results to be announced.
Gaspar said yesterday that it was communicated to him that the last day of the entire process will be Wednesday. He said that according to his knowledge, all the counting has been completed.
“Only the running boxes for Georgetown are left to be counted. For all the outlying areas, those boxes should have been counted on the same day of polls (April 27), so we are now waiting for statement of polls for those boxes that would have been counted since Thursday evening and the SOPs should have been known to the Elections Officer by at least Friday and today is Sunday (yesterday).”
Gaspar said that he and his team will remain outside the GPSU Headquarters until Wednesday to witness the retrieval of the SOPs for Region 10, which are said to be in the ballot boxes. According to Gaspar, the Elections Officer is not authorised to open the boxes, hence he and his team have to be present to witness the opening.
“So we will be vigilant until that time comes.”
Meanwhile, on Saturday, the GPSU had sent out a statement saying that it was forced to call in ranks of the Guyana Police Force at the Union’s headquarters, since persons who were behaving in a disruptive and intimidating manner had entered the building without authorisation.
Moreover, on that day, these inconsistencies among others had been formally communicated to De Souza by Gaspar on Saturday via a letter. This was also copied to Assistant Elections Officer, Gregory Mentore, President of the Trade Union Recognition and Administration Board, Justice Claudette La Bennett, the Registrar of Trade Unions and Minister of State Joseph Harmon.
Among the issues addressed in the communication was the disenfranchisement of several eligible voters, the election being conducted without a general list of eligible voters, no statement of polls for six administrative regions and ballot boxes being returned to the GPSU Headquarters in the absence of the Elections Officer or Assistant Elections Officer.
According to the letter, the highlighted issues are just a few of the discrepancies which were of critical importance.
Gaspar suggested to De Souza that he acted prematurely in calling the election and executing these elections two days after the discharge of an injunction which sought to postpone the elections. According to Gaspar, voters were not given ample notice as to the date that elections would be held.

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One thought on “GPSU elections results for Wednesday announcement”

Dennis Mckenzie May 1, 2017 at 3:37 pm

Had Team Change any observers in the outlying areas to oversee the voting process in relation to the PSU elections?if not,how can it determine what took place?

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