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Coalition makes “no apologies” for keeping SOPs private – Norton
Despite repeated calls for the A Partnership For National Unity + Alliance For Change Coalition (APNU+AFC) to release copies of the Statements of Poll (SOPs) in their possession, Executive Member, Aubrey Norton says his party makes “no apologies” for keeping these private.
Aubrey Norton
Norton was at the time responding to questions by the media at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre on whether or not his party would be heeding the several calls made for them to make their SOPs public.
Norton said, “When a party has its statements of poll, it is for its use. And it has to decide strategically and tactically when it releases it.”
He pointed out that his party has taken a strategic position not to release their SOPs. “And we have no apologies for it,” Norton said.
The same question was posed to David Patterson after the head of the observer mission of the Organisation of American States (OAS) Bruce Golding emerged with evidence to show that Region Four Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo had inflated the numbers for the APNU/AFC, and that more evidence of this was revealed in the ongoing national recount.
Patterson, while he stated that Golding’s numbers do not match what his party has in their possession, he was reluctant to say whether the party would be releasing their SOPs.
“We would [be] addressing this question more frontally,” is what Patterson said.
Norton questioned the credibility of the OAS observer head, making the claims citing that he has a direct link to the Opposition Leader calling his impartially into question.
“First of all, if you go to read the rules on International Observers, you would know one of the positions is that an observer should be impartial. An observer really should have no links to the contestants in the elections.”
Asked why his party did not object to Golding as an elections observer if concerns were raised about his credibility, he said, “In the hustle and bustle of running an election, I don’t think anybody paid any attention to who the observers were.”
Norton was asked by reporters whether it would be beneficial to release their SOPs to public to back their claims that the number matched with that of Mingo’s.
To this, he said, “First of all, I believe that all statements of poll will have errors, for different reasons. And right now, I do not believe it is in our interest to get involved in the issue of statements of poll, or else we would have done that long ago.”
Norton continued, “I can show you statements of poll from Region Three that I collected. And when you check it against what has happened now, you know it wasn’t correct.”
He explained that any political process, “you have to recognise that anything you do will have negatives and positives.”
“It is the leadership that weighs and decides at which point they will do what, and what will be efficacious for them.”
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