Problems the Coalition had long been complaining about are beginning to surface

May 10, 2020 AFC Column, Features / Columnists

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The recount and audit of the March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections have begun in earnest in the past week and there is every indication that some of the problems the Coalition had long been complaining about in the run up to the polls are beginning to surface.
It was the administration of President David Granger, which had fought vigorously for the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to sanitize the extremely bloated voters list. The Coalition had also wholeheartedly campaigned for House-to-House Registration as a means of allowing the country to approach the elections with a clean, credible voters’ list that all would have been happy with. As we can all recall, the House-to-House exercise was abandoned even though much of the work had already been completed. The result is that we lost a golden and glorious opportunity to prepare properly for the most important elections since independence in May of 1966.
But as we all know now, the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) are the ones which steadfastly resisted the cleansing of the list for its own political reasons that are now coming back to haunt us all.
As the counting proceeds at the Conference Centre on the lower East Coast, the fears of the Coalition that electoral malfeasance would have resulted if the country had gone into March 2 with a bloated list are surfacing for all to see.
Our agents have been consistently reporting and complaining about dead or migrated people being recorded as having voted and the only ones who appear to have no problem with this is the PPP, as expected.
Guyana’s population is estimated by many as around 780,000. Yet GECOM published a list with more than 660,000 voters on the electoral scroll. For this to be anywhere near accurate, it would mean that we would have had to cut or reduce the national schools population by half to around 130,000 to cater for this category of citizens and to accurately reflect the list of eligible voters.
The Education Ministry as we all know, caters to a national school population of about 260,000 students. Add to this the 660,000 plus names on GECOM’s voters list and the total is way beyond the national population.
Briefing reporters outside the Centre on Friday, Minister Simona Broomes pointed to the problems with the dead and migrated being recorded as having voted. She also railed against the PPP’s resistance to the list being clean and hinted that GECOM might have missed the proverbial bus.
“We were the ones who wanted the list sanitized. Had that been done, we would not have been where we are at today. It is the Coalition government from the outset, which was fighting to have a process which was transparent and credible. You have the evidence before you. In a statement of recount, these things matter. People probably knew why they wanted us to go into elections with that list. We have our representatives and commissioners present. I am sure at that level all the objections raised will be ventilated and clarified in the best interests of all,” she said.
Infrastructure Minister David Patterson was also up in arms against the situation.
As the counting progressed, information surfaced about a development that we fear will repeat itself as the hours go by.
Coalition representatives Sherod Duncan and Mr. James Bond had pointed to a situation in District One where almost 600 persons who had died or migrated were recorded as having voted. “The ballot box with the most fraud is box number 1052,” they said in a spirited post on social media, as they urged supporters to share widely.
On the Linden-Soesdyke Highway at the Yarrowkabra Primary School, Coalition representatives pointed to the massive cheating and fraudulent behaviour of the PPP to win the crucial Region or District Four. Their SOP showed the Coalition obtaining 41 votes and 59 for them, the PPP. Lo and behold and as widely expected, the recount showed a whopping difference of 119 votes for the Government. More of this is expected in Regions Four, Five, Six and Three at the least, not forgetting of course Nine and One.
While these are being exposed, GECOM has been asked to remove IT specialist Aneal Giddings from his position after he was caught in a secret meeting with PPP candidates before recounting had gotten underway on Thursday. GECOM is yet to rule but the Coalition is adamant that he should be removed in the same way the PPP campaigned against District Four Returning Officer, Mr. Mingo.
The Alliance Force Change (AFC) noted in a social media posting that there “is emerging as a trend in all the regions for which the recount has begun. Additionally, in areas which are PPP strongholds, several persons who have died are recorded as having voted. So far, almost 100 instances of dead people being recorded as voting have been unearthed in Regions One, Two and Three – exclusively in PPP stronghold areas.
Also dozens of persons who are known to have long migrated from Guyana but whose names remained on the un-sanitized voters list are recorded as having voted even though immigration records show that they were not present in Guyana for the March 2 elections. Again, these instances are exclusively being uncovered in PPP stronghold areas.
The PPP hierarchy has been silent on this blatant attempt by the party to manipulate the results of the March 2nd polls,” the Party said.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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