May 13, 2020 News
The governing coalition, APNU+AFC said it can provide personal immigration records to prove some of the claims it has been making, in its campaign to scrutinize the National Recount of votes.
The coalition has been raising many objections during the recount, which its recount supervisor Leonard Craig said yesterday, strikes at the heart of the credibility of the election.
One type of objection which appears to be featuring repeatedly is the claim that persons are listed as have voted, but the party said they were not present in the country at the time.
This is one of the ways the party is contending that the PPP is trying to rig the election. But when it comes to providing evidence, it is unclear how the party would legally provide it.
Speaking to reporters last night, as day seven of the recount came to a close, Craig said that the party has evidence to back up the claims it is making.
“Like we have always said that we will produce it. If you want immigration records then it will be produced,” Craig stated.
However, the party supervisor appeared to backpedal on the statement when asked how the party gets the people’s personal records.
He responded “That is from research that we have done. We have agents in every village and in every town in Guyana.”
He added “We do not capture all but we believe the ones that we investigated are true and correct.”
Pressed further to discuss the nature of the party’s research, Craig said “A lot of the people who live in communities have local knowledge of, you know, what is happening and basically, that is the foundation for determining some of these things.”
But then he brought up the immigration records again at another point in the interview, when asked if the party would release evidence to support its claims.
“We did not discuss releasing that to the public, and I got some of that from the small parties, they are claiming that these are people’s private information, and to put it out there in the public because immigration records would include your full name, your address, your date of departure, your time, your flight number, even your destination. And we can’t just go and release that to the public. So we give it directly to the CEO or [his] Secretariat.”
Asked how he would foresee the release of immigration records in the absence of a court order, he referred to a legal privilege of GECOM in the National Registration Act, which allows the electoral agency to obtain certain records. But he still would not say how or whether his party has access to the records he said it would produce.