Following the recount of all ballots cast in the March 02, 2020 General and Regional elections which concluded Sunday, the PPP/C has issued statements saying that it has won those elections by over 15, 000 votes,despite there being no final declaration from the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).
Taking serious note of the foregoing with an “eagle eye” is APNU+AFC Executive Member, Joseph Harmon, who last evening issued a call to CARICOM’s Secretary General Irwin LaRocque and Chairperson Mia Mottley, to take note of the PPP/C’s deceiving tactics.
Harmon’s call is premised on the fact that the main Opposition has sent out several statements which have gone worldwide claiming victory at the polls.
Harmon reminded that he has repeatedly said that the only authority to make a pronouncement on which party wins or loses the elections is the Chairperson of GECOM, Justice (retired) Claudette Singh.
He added that even before incumbent President David Granger and Leader of the Opposition, Bharrat Jagdeo agreed to the national recount, the PPP/C had gone out there saying it was victorious at the elections.
Against this backdrop, Harmon said, “So if they [PPP/C] are basically disrespectful of CARICOM…I trust that the Secretary General of CARICOM and the Chairman have taken note of the deceit tactics of the PPP in this regard. CARICOM has not even delivered its report, the Chairman of GECOM has not made a declaration, and PPP has gone out there making statements about how they will govern Guyana and all sorts of nonsense. This is part of the [PPP] and their ploy to create confusion around the minds of the Guyanese people here and in the diaspora.”
Harmon, the former Minister of State, opined that the PPP/C is creating a very dangerous precedent and people are incensed about it because they want to know at one point was a declaration made by GECOM. He went further to condemn two daily newspapers for carrying headlines which boldly stated the Opposition won the elections.
Reacting to the newspapers’ headlines, Harmon said, “ This is nonsense, it is not so. I want to make this very clear to all Guyanese that it is not so.”
According to him, the PPP/C is not a party that could be trusted.
“…There are statements in the media of [Bharrat] Jagdeo saying he wants to have shared governance and so on. Now he feels that they have won, according to him, he is not talking about shared governance anymore; he is talking about inclusive governance. So the tune change. How can you trust a person like that?” he added.
But the PPP/C is not the only party that has been saying it won the elections. The very APNU+AFC is also guilty of this.
In fact, several members of the coalition, including Attorney General Basil Williams have publicly stated that the coalition has won the elections despite there being no declaration of the final results by GECOM.
As recently as Sunday, Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo in his column ‘My Turn’ wrote: “As I see it, the Elections Commission already has the results of the 10 electoral districts which show that the APNU+AFC Coalition has won by a narrow margin. The Opposition does not agree that those results are credible, and has hinted at going to the Courts on the ground that “fraud vitiates everything”.
There are four sequential stages of the national recount. On Sunday, GECOM concluded the recount of all ballots cast at the elections. It is expected that the tabulation of the Statements of Recount (SoR) will be finished today. The second stage is a report of the recount which has to be compiled by the Chief Elections Officer. In the third stage of the recount, the report will have to be reviewed by the elections commissioners.
The commissioners will be expected to take into consideration all the evidence provided in the Chief Elections Officer’s report, both from the tabulation and observation, in their deliberation. The final results which will be delivered by the Chairman of GECOM, is the fourth and final stage of the recount.
GECOM, via a press statement this week reminded that it is the only constitutional body authorised to declare election results.
In the statement, GECOM said it has noted reports in sections of the media and by individuals on social media platforms announcing the results of the March 2, 2020, General and Regional Elections.
“While the National Recount of the ballots cast in those elections is almost to an end, the Commission wishes to remind that the Guyana Elections Commission is the only Constitutional authority mandated to pronounce on the results of the elections,” the release noted.
As such, GECOM urges all political parties, organisations, interest groups and other individuals to desist from pronouncing publicly on the results of the elections.