Opposition Leader, Aubrey Norton has accused the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/C) of being agents of electoral fraud. According to Norton, the party forged a number of signatures on documents that were submitted during this week’s nomination day for Local Government Elections (LGE).
At the party’s weekly press conference today, Norton claimed, with documents substantiating his claims, that the signatures in some cases were used on the documents without the knowledge of some nominators. He opined that this is a serious offence and called on the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to act swiftly.
“This is another manifestation of their corrupt nature. Many of those persons whose signatures were forged by the PPP in support of the PPP wrote GECOM demanding the withdrawal of their names. We await the outcome of that,” Norton said.
Norton also registered his disappointment that the election body was not able to spot the fraud early on and deal with it immediately. His party later released scanned copies of a number of statutory declarations reportedly made by PPP/C candidates.
“In the Woodlands/Bel Air NDC, the PPP’s list was rejected by GECOM officials because all the signatures for First Past the Post (FPTP) and Proportional Representation (PR) were signed by one person. The PPP was given up to Tuesday, April 18 to correct this illegality. They made another submission and again, all of them were signed by one person for everyone,” Norton said.
He continued, “Unfortunately, GECOM illegally has given them the go-ahead to participate. It must be noted that there are persons who are thumb printers and rather than their thumb print appearing, they were signed for. “
Norton said this amounts to fraud and vowed that these and other matters will be challenged.
