ANUG accuses GECOM of electoral fraud

THE A New and United Guyana (ANUG) has accused the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Secretariat of “acting in conspiracy” and in collusion with Region Four Returning Officer (RO), Clairmont Mingo, to alter the results of the 2020 General and Regional elections.

The party however, ignored the numerous irregularities uncovered during the recount process, the most notable being some 29 ballot boxes void of any of the critical documents.

In a string of accusations levelled on Wednesday, it called for the investigation into the declarations of Mingo by the GECOM but, at the same time, labelled the commission’s “entire management” as “incapable of organising the simplest tasks” save to being “severely compromised and partisan”.

These and more sentiments were included in a letter penned to GECOM Chair, Justice (Ret’d) Claudette Singh on June 7, 2020. A portion of the letter called for an investigation into variances observed by ANUG’s party representatives during various stages of the elections. The party stated: “These discrepancies were not authored by Mr. Mingo solely, but point to faction within the secretariat acting in conspiracy. ANUG believes that confidence in the secretariat is low, and the secretariat is compromised. The conspiracy must be investigated to ensure the future viability of the commission as a whole.”

They included comparisons between the numbers called out by Mingo prior to the recount and the numbers now present on the Statements of Recount (SORs). In explaining its position, ANUG said that its party representatives noticed a number of variances at the GECOM Region Four Office and at the GECOM Headquarters occurring between March 3-13, and orchestrated by Mingo. It said that “unverified numbers” were presented by the RO who was reading from a spreadsheet.

Meanwhile, another part of the letter accused the GECOM Secretariat of acting in defiance of statutory procedures by requesting that Presiding Officers (POs) deliver statutory documents to the Secretariat. “Again, this needs investigation. ANUG urges you, if there are rogue elements within the secretariat who undermine its very viability, they need to be identified and removed,” the party stated.

The party also found fault with the commission’s exchange with the Chief Immigration Officer to acquire a list of persons who were out of the country on Election Day and therefore could not have voted. It argued that such groundwork must be done by the political party and not the commission based on the chairperson’s documented position that ‘He who asserts must prove.”

Pointing to Mingo’s attempts at making a declaration earlier in March at the Region Four RO’s Office/Command Centre, ANUG said: “We wish to remind the commission that there appears to be an arm within its executing body endowed with authority to act either without instructions from the commission, or against its overall objectives… numerous decisions were taken to date which appear counterintuitive the transparency and accountability, the most recent one being to include the use of the words ‘not valid’ in the observation reports for those votes held in ballots boxes with documents which were alleged to be missing and apparent reluctance to include these boxes into tabulation.”

In light of its position on the matters, ANUG formally requested an investigation into the events which took place at the Region Four RO’s Office/Command Centre which led to the presentation of Statement of Polls (SOPs) which the party believes possess “alarming variances” to the current SORs. It further called for the investigation to extend into the “entire management” of GECOM in the letter signed by a lone Executive Member of ANUG.