Control of GEOCOM by PPP

A Partnership for National Unity (A.P.N.U) wishes to make it abundantly clear to the press and public that it is profoundly disturbed by the undue influence being exercised by the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C), one of the contestants in the recent general elections, over the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).

GECOM’s arrangements have already resulted in inordinate delays and vacillation in producing the results for the General and Regional elections. Evidence of attempts to subvert the will of the electorate as can be seen in: 

• The assault led by members of the PPP/C on several polling stations during the counting of ballots at the place of poll immediately after voting stopped. These included, but are not limited to, Clement Rohee, Odinga Lumumba, Kwame McKoy, Frank Anthony, Juan Edghill;
• the declaration by PPP/C Presidential Candidate Donald Ramotar on his Facebook page on Tuesday 29^th November that he had won the Presidency;
• the blatant compromising of the ballot boxes as witnessed by our discovery after the close of poll of a GECOM ballot box security seal #0023154 at the East Ruimveldt Multilateral School on Mandela Ave, Georgetown;
• the claim, about which we have not been officially informed, that the PPP/C had requested a recount of votes for Regions 3, 4, and 10. This after Donald Ramotar had already declared himself the President.
• Several serious anomalies in which ballot boxes in the following areas do not correspond with the numbers issued by GECOM. A list is attached.

A.P.N.U wishes to make it clear that the requirements of the electoral laws were fully met when the Presiding Officers and the Polling Agents signed and posted their respective results outside each polling station. A.P.N.U iterates that it will never, therefore, participate in any recount of the votes.

A.P.N.U has received no reports as to whether GECOM, as required by law, received Declarations of Polls signed by the Returning Officers (RO). We call on GECOM to state specifically on what basis it intends to make a Declaration of Results. A.P.N.U, therefore, is not confident that that any declaration by GECOM at this stage about the Presidency of Guyana can have a legitimate basis.

A.P.N.U categorically rejects any design or attempt by GECOM to retroactively legitimise the PPPC’s Presidential Candidate Donald Ramotar’s presumptuous declaration of himself as President. A.P.N.U’s supporters and all fair-minded Guyanese have become fed up with GECOM and the PPP/C’s machinations. They will, therefore, never endorse any subterfuge that seeks to endorse retroactively Ramotar’s declaration.