Coalition agent discredits Region 3 votes

UPON completion of the processing of Region Three ballot boxes at the national recount, the coalition agent who was assigned to that station, Ganesh Mahipaul, has said that voting in the region was far from credible.

Mahipaul based his position on the numerous anomalies that were unearthed in several boxes at the station. He told this publication that for the Essequibo Islands-West Demerara region, eight certificates of employment were missing; six persons who were proven dead were registered as voting; 472 migrants who were not in Guyana on polling day had voted; eight persons who did not have ID cards had voted without oaths of identity; 25 oaths of identity were missing; two ballots were unstamped and there were 11 missing poll books.
These irregularities have affected some 24,095 votes; as such, Mahipaul said that the region’s votes can in no way be deemed credible.

He went on to say, “We had cases where the counterfoils of used ballot papers had the same serial numbers written on them. What this means is that one voter or person was given more than one ballot papers to vote. I agree, as long as a voter spoils his ballot he gets a new one, but in these cases, the boxes had no spoils and no cancellation, so how can you justify the same serial number from the OLE repeating itself on the counterfoils multiple times? This one is not just a discrepancy it is a fraud… We also in District Three had cases of missing Poll Books. The Poll Book verifies the addition of names on the Official List of Electors. With the absence of the Poll Book, we do not know how many persons were permitted to be added to the list, we do not know how many persons voted via oaths and most importantly, what transpired at the poll stations.”

When these instances arose, Mahipaul said that the People’s Progressive Party/Civic’s (PPP/C’s) agent recorded his response as ‘human error.”
To this end, Mahipaul said “I hope he knows that it is humans that corrupt the system and not animals. The stamping of ballot papers must be done by the PO [presiding officer] and if ballot papers are not stamped, the vote is invalid. Similarly, unsigned oaths are invalid; hence, the votes belonging to persons who did not sign their oaths must also be invalid. It is the principle that matters.”

Ever since these observations were raised by the coalition, Mahipaul said, opposition agents have been making a lot of noise to say that the recount process is not to raise these kinds of anomalies; and some agents have been deeming the coalition’s claims ‘ludicrous.’
However, Mahipaul added that the opposition will never accept what is being done, for it is their own trickery that is being exposed.

He said even though the PPP is contending that the gazette recount Order does not cater for the review of evidence and these anomalies being raised, “the fact that the constitutional agency that has the mandate to conduct free, credible and transparent elections has taken it upon itself to request of us to submit the evidence to substantiate our claim. It is an indication that they are willing to vet and confirm what we are alleging. That is a step in the right direction because we are looking for credible, transparent and fair elections, which is what this whole process entails. And the national recount process wasn’t birthed out of thin air, it was birthed out of the fact that GECOM has the authority vested in them by the constitution to have a national recount.”

Mahipaul said that the Order for the recount clearly indicates in the guidelines, what was the modus operandi and it included the observation reports.
“It included picking up these anomalies, it included raising objections and the likes, and of course we cannot just be doing it to merely put it on paper. We have to be doing it for a reason and that is to ensure that the word credible can be attached to the results that will be declared,” he posited.

Alluding further that the reason for the coalition’s persistence in raising these anomalies in the national recount, is not just because they believe they won the elections, but it also has to do with ensuring that going forward as a country, measures can be put in place to cap the uncapped and to close the loopholes. So 2025 when the country is expected to have another election, it will run smoothly with measures being put in place to ensure there is not a repetition of the trickery.

“The thing that the PPP does not want to accept is that we have members of the coalition that came from the belly of them, so we know what their tricks are. And those very people would have not only told us, but showed us how they used to do it. So we have found them out. They have rigged several elections and it was done so smartly you don’t even realise. They take a little here and take a little there and when it accumulates, it is a large number,” Mahipaul disclosed.

He cleared up too, that when it was previously said by coalition officials that the March 2 elections were free and fair, it was referring to the face value of the day’s occurrences.
“It was outside on the book cover is what we just saw, we just saw people going to vote. We just saw an activity where people go in to vote and there was no hostility, no animosity, no fighting, no violence. It was a smooth process.

But we did not read too deep down into it there and then. It is now that we are actually doing this deep reading into the book we are recognising we cannot have a list that is so bloated, which we have said from the outset as a coalition… The question to which I need an answer is, how can we categorise the votes counted thus far as valid, when we cannot confirm the validity of the votes? Or perhaps a more interesting question to ask is, why was the PPP/C not interested in a sanitised Official List of Electors” ? Mahipaul querried.

As more boxes are opened, more irregularities are being found and exposed by the coalition. The party however maintains that it is the decision of GECOM to determine what will be done at the end of this process.