‘We never colluded with anyone’

AMID allegations of electoral tampering, President David Granger, in no uncertain terms, made it clear that the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) did not collude with the Region Four Returning Officer (RO) Clairmont Mingo or any elections official to rig the 2020 General and Regional Elections, as he dismissed the allegations being peddled by the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) and its allies.

“…the coalition, of which I am the chairman, never colluded with anyone to interfere with the electoral process,” President Granger said in response to a question posed by Guyana Chronicle during an interview at State House on Sunday.

In vouching for the political agents of the APNU+AFC, the President said they were not complicit. Since the close of polls on March 2, there have been repeated calls for the APNU+AFC to make public its Statements of Poll after both sides had claimed victory. President Granger said based on a spreadsheet shown to him following the elections, the APNU+AFC was in the lead.

“What I can say is that the spreadsheet that I was presented with of the SOPs indicated quite clearly – I haven’t seen the individual SOPs myself – indicated quite clearly that the numerical advantage was in favour of the APNU+AFC. I never saw the SOPs myself but I saw the spreadsheets, and I was satisfied that the spreadsheets, they had, were accurate,” the APNU+AFC leader said.

Nonetheless, like any other political party heading into an election, the APNU+AFC, President Granger noted, campaigned vigorously ahead of the March Elections, and once the polls were held, it awaited the declaration of the results by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).

But the electoral process, he admitted, was marred by allegations of electoral fraud, disruptions and even violent protests that resulted in a number of school children being injured after the bus they were in was stoned by irate PPP/C supporters in West Berbice, Region Five.

It was President Granger who, despite leading the electoral race by more than 7,000 votes, agreed to a national recount after the electoral process was bogged down with a series of legal actions filed by the PPP/C, through a private citizen, Reeaz Holladar, over allegations that the Region Four Returning Officer had not complied with the Representation of the People Act in tabulating the Statements of Poll for his Electoral District.

Justifying his decision, the Head of State said, in part, it was based on the allegations of electoral manipulation, that he agreed to facilitate a national recount of all the ballots cast at the General and Regional Elections, following an intervention by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

“I was concerned also, as early as March 6, that were there not some intervention on the part of the Caribbean Community, there could have been a degeneration in the public security situation, and this is what we saw in West Berbice, in which a school bus was stoned and school children were injured, and I certainly, as a Head of State, did not want the security situation to degenerate,” he explained.

Iterating that it was he who had agreed to the recount, the President said the exercise was intended to establish whether or not there was electoral fraud of any kind. “I participated in a process to find out whether there was fraudulent voting, and I don’t think that you could have asked a Head of State to do more,” President Granger said.

“So from a legal point of view, from an operational point of view, and from a political point of view, I did everything necessary or possible,” he said, while noting that it is for the Elections Commission to treat with allegations of fraud.

With the first two phases of the recount process completed, it has been revealed that there were massive irregularities, anomalies and suspected cases of voter impersonation.

The Chief Elections Officer (CEO), Keith Lowenfield, in his 10 Observation Reports to the Elections Commission, pointed to more 2,000 cases of anomalies and another 4,864 suspected cases of voter impersonation. According to Lowenfield, well over 229,000 votes have been compromised. While the APNU+AFC has been pushing for these irregularities to be investigated by GECOM, the PPP/C and a number of the smaller political parties have been up in arms against any decision by GECOM to deliberate on these electoral breaches, contending that it must proceed with the declaration.

President Granger said the repeated cases of missing statutory documents, and voter impersonation were enough to convince him that the poll was fraudulent. “I don’t know who perpetrated the [fraudulent] poll, but certainly it was not the APNU+AFC; we had no interest in doing that,” he made clear, while iterating that the irregularities have impaired the credibility of the electoral process.

Nonetheless, with the CEO’s Report now before the Elections Commission, chaired by Justice (Ret’d) Claudette Singh, the President is hopeful that within the matter of days, the elongated electoral process will come to an end, much to the satisfaction of the Guyanese people.