DEAR EDITOR, 

MANY persons, including the inter­national community, are saying that the respective Returning Officers of the electoral districts, except District Four, bad verified their declared results by comparing their Statements of Poll with the copies of the respective political parties’ Statements of Poll. I wish to say categorically that this is untrue. 

I am a candidate for the APNU+AFC political movement and was deeply in­volved in the election process. I wish to state exactly what occurred as it relates to the declaration of District Three Gen­eral and Regional elections results. 

To begin with, at approximately 02:00hrs, Tuesday, March 3, myself along with three other candidates from the APNU+AFC went to the Pouderoyen tarmac on the West Bank of Demer­ara where we examined and verified ballot boxes in the presence of  GECOM staff and PPP/C representatives. At the end of that exercise, the container was locked with padlocks from GECOM, PPP/C and the APNU+AFC. We then proceeded to the office of the Return­ing Officer which is located al Novelle Flanders on the West Coast of Demerara next to the recently constructed state­of-the-art Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission Region Three Office. 

Upon our arrival, the PPP/C repre­sentatives were already seated and so too were the observers (local and inter­national). A lady whom I don’t know assembled a table with three chairs and said only three of us are allowed to sit there. My fourth comrade sat with the observers. The Returning Officer after about 20 minutes or so said that he is ready to start the announcement of results and subsequent declaration. I vividly r,emember him saying ‘an­nouncement’ and not ‘verification.’ He then started to call out numbers for the respective ballot boxes. My colleagues and I then noticed that on the walls of the office was a blown-up spreadsheet and we assumed it was for recording the nw11bers he was calling, so Mr. John Adams who was sitting with me inter­jected while he was calling and request­ed a miniature of the spreadsheet that was mounted on the wall. The Returning Officer stopped calling numbers and proceeded to print the spreadsheet. At this point the PPP/C reps also requested same. It took the Returning Officer about 15 minutes to get the spreadsheet. His excuse was that the printer was slow. The observers were not in receipt of the spreadsheet. They only enjoyed 

the lu::..’lllY of listening to the voice of 

the Returning Officer. The Returning Officer recommenced calling numbers for ballot boxes from the beginning and I started to record the numbers on the spreadsheet. 

At the end of this process, the Re­turning Officer made his declaration without the APNU+AFC verifying those numbers with their copy of the State­ments of Poll. I highly doubt the PPP/C had the chance of verifying the results, but I guess they accepted it on the basis that the tabulated numbers favoured them. His declaration was ANUG 310 votes, APNU+AFC 23 811 votes, CG 318 votes, PPP/C 4 7 855 votes, TCI 80 votes, TNM 56 votes and URP 4 3 votes. He further said that the number of valid votes for all parties lists of candidates was 72 608, number of spoilt ballot papers 125, number of destroyed ballot papers nine and total number of tendered ballots five. He called out some other

numbers. 

Editor, I have chronicled this to make the point that District 1l1ree Gen­eral and Regional Elections results were never verified and declared by examin­ing the Statements of Poll by Statements of Poll. It was only the Returning Offi­cer who was calling numbers and the party candidates/agents were recording on a spreadsheet. It is a figment of one’s imagination to say otherwise and I find it strange that our friends from the in­ternational community have not yet said anything, given that the perception is out there that all other regions declared their results lby examining SOPs by SOPs. May I add that I made contact with my Region Two colleague and he said to me that the very way the declaration was done in Region Three is the way it was done in his region. 

Notwithstanding the already de­clared results, we from the APNU+AFC side went back to our operation centre and cross-examined the numbers called out by tlhe Returning Officer with those on our SOPs. We recognised discrepan­cies and began the process of requesting a recount which is catered for. I am guided that our request was denied and I cannot assume why. 

Editor, I must say that the Rt­turning Oflictr maintained that only three political persons per sidt wtre allowed to sit at the respective tahlts, not 25. I trust that ptrsons will now understand that not all the districts did it the way they are saying it was done.

Yours faithfully, 

Ganesh Mahipaul 

APNU+AFC candidate

Source: https://issuu.com/guyanachroniclee-paper/docs/guyana_chronicle_e-paper_3-8-2020