Harmon makes unverified claim of compromised ballots

Jun 06, 2020 News

Coalition Campaign Co-Chair , Joseph Harmon is yet again raising unsubstantiated claims about the credibility of the March 2 general and regional elections. During a briefing with the press held at the Arthur Chung Convention Centre yesterday Harmon faced a series of questions about his views.

Government spokesman, Joseph Harmon

Harmon claimed, “when we are looking at the qualitative figure of the number of cases that we have highlighted, it’s close to 90,000 [votes] that are ‘infected’.”
According to Harmon, the Guyana Elections Commission,(GECOM) has a number of serious issues that must be ironed out before the final declaration is made.
“This phase is almost complete, so we must know where we stand as it regards these matters…After the statement of recount has been produced, a report has to be produced, these observations will be documented…” he said.
The Coalition has, as part of a misinformation campaign this recount, raised thousands of objections to the process, alleging serious electoral fraud by the PPP/C. When pressed for evidence, however, it has been shy about producing. There has not been, to date, any verifiable evidence of electoral fraud occurring on Election Day. In fact, the Coalition has placed the onus on GECOM to produce evidence to support its claims. It has published none that were able to withstand scrutiny.
Despite this, Harmon said that the Coalition is awaiting a response from GECOM about the various claims made. He noted that he had written several letters to the Commission about those concerns.
“I have raised those concerns again in a press statement yesterday requiring the commission to give me a response to the queries by the end of today. I am not sure if the commission will meet or not; I cannot determine their arrangement but I require a response from them to give a query by the end of the day because these are major issues which touch and concern the credibility of this process.”
Further, the former Director-General held that there are hundreds of persons whom his party objected to that were not in Guyana on the March 2 but voted. In this case, many of the claims made by the Coalition have been proven to be false, and none has so far been substantiated.
Weeks ago, when the Coalition submitted a list of persons it claimed were out of the jurisdiction, a Berbice couple, whose names were found on the list, quickly refuted the claims and showed Kaieteur News their passports to prove that they were in the country.
That was only the beginning. The Coalition supplied two lists to GECOM. The first list of 207 names was sent to the Immigration Department for verification, and returned 172 purported to be confirmed. However, 24 persons on that list have since come forward to refute the Immigration Department’s inaccurate report.
The second list supplied by the Coalition, of 310 names, was also found by Kaieteur News to be riddled with inaccurate information. The Coalition has been making these claims since the beginning of the recount, and intensified its campaign when the recount showed the PPP to be maintaining a considerable lead.
Before the recount, the Coalition had been maintaining that it won the elections. But that contention was based on a series of declarations which include the fraudulent Region Four tabulation produced by Region Four Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo.
When asked yesterday whether, based on the declarations so far, he believes that the coalition has won the elections, Harmon said that the party cannot make this determination. Kaieteur News had so far proven, using verifiable data, that Mingo manipulated the Region Four tabulation to favour the incumbent. The APNU+AFC representative said that it is his party’s position to await the decision of the Chairman of the Elections Commission on the winners of the 2020 Regional and General Elections, though the party has said several times before that it has won.

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