—- APNU+AFC requests clarity from GECOM
—- Commissioners split on matter
—- Gunraj says anomalies a matter for the Court
WHILE remaining adamant that they have sufficient evidence to support their claims, the APNU+AFC wants the Elections Commission to clearly indicate how the anomalies captured during the national recount in the general Observation Report will be dealt with.
The request for a clear position on the matter comes as Commissioners of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) are split on what value the Observation Report will have, once the process is completed.
One side has stated that the magnitude of the anomalies could affect the outcome of the recount but the other stated that the anomalies will not be taken into consideration by the Commission.
Speaking to the media on Friday, Opposition-nominated Commissioner, Sase Gunraj, was asked whether GECOM will be taking these anomalies into consideration and stated: “Not as far as I’m aware. The contents of the Observation Report is one thing, the Statements of Recount refer to the results of the elections and, as far as I’m concerned, the Statements of Recount will be results of the elections.”
The media, now unsure of the purpose of the compilation of an Observation Report, based on Gunraj’s position, pressed him further on the matter. He concluded that it is not the Commission’s responsibility to investigate these anomalies as this lies within the remit of the court and should come in the form of an elections petition.
“It’s not the Commission’s place to investigate those allegations. The investigation of those allegations respectively is the domain of the Court. All of the case law related to the conduct of elections etcetera speak to investigations or interrogation of those kinds of activities to be done by the Court, not at the Commission level,” he said.
Contrary to this position, on a previous occasion, Government-nominated Commissioner, Vincent Alexander, warned that electoral wrongdoings being unearthed during recount could impact the outcome of the elections.
He told the media that whether the wrongdoings and discrepancies witnessed thus far do impact the results depend on their magnitude and the impact of said magnitude on the ballots cast.
“Any electoral process, even if you have wrongdoing, the precedent has always been to look at the magnitude of the wrong doing to see if that magnitude could affect the results. For example, if you have an election where you come up with a count where the difference [gap between political parties] is 20, 30, 40 votes and the wrongdoing is 80 or 100 votes, there’s a serious problem because the wrongdoing exceeds the difference and therefore could impact on the final results,” he had explained.
However, after listening to Gunraj’s remarks on Friday, APNU+AFC Executive, Cathy Hughes, engaged the media to state that the Elections Commission has to take up responsibility for how it will deal with the anomalies highlighted in Observation Reports, an avenue created by the Commission.
She said that a conversation must be had on what, if the allegations of the party are proven true, will be done to correct them.
“We have been trying to meet with GECOM for the entire week because we too, in the APNU+AFC, want to know what GECOM is going to do with the information that we have in our possession and it’s for them to disprove,” Hughes said.
The APNU+AFC Executive said that her party has a range of evidence to provide to the Commission even as it continues to ask the question: what next?
“Everybody has been raising the question, do we give you all our copies of the death certificates now? What is the process? We don’t have an answer for that yet. In fact, there is one side of the legal fraternity that says once we make the objection and give the name it is for GECOM to investigate,” Hughes stated.
She said that it would be unjust for the Commission to say to electors that it will do nothing about anomalies, especially as they relate to dead and migrated persons, and still hold itself to having conducted free, fair and credible elections.
Apart from this, when Gunraj spoke earlier, he put forward the position that while APNU+AFC agents are providing proof to their allegations raised, this proof may not be legally in their possession.
He said that the General Registrar’s Office (GRO) is the custodian of records as it relates to births, deaths and marriages and when he checked recently, the Office was closed. Meanwhile, he said that the Central Immigration and Passport Office is the custodian of immigration records and is a branch of the Guyana Police Force (GPF) which leads him to question the custody of these documents.
“Those records, like your tax records etcetera, ought not to be released without going through proper channels,” Gunraj said. “I am concerned who has access to those documents and whether those documents are being accessed for nefarious reasons.”
He said in some cases persons have had to go all the way to the court in request of the release of certain official records and it is therefore “worrisome” to see such documents in the hands of party agents, whether they are legitimate or not.
However, Hughes, in response said that valid death certificates are available to any member of the public for the small price of GY$300 at the GRO. Added to this, she said that what the Opposition seems to be forgetting is that the APNU+AFC has been on the trail of locating such possible cases long before the recount, and after the release of a “bloated” Official List of Electors (OLE).
Looking back at the processes leading up the elections, she said that it was foolhardy for the Opposition to campaign for the discontinuing of the house-to-house registration exercise, when it was critical to the elimination of deceased persons from the OLE.
Hughes said that long before the March 2 elections, the APNU+AFC was carefully scrutinizing the OLE, particularly during the Claims and Objections period.
“We have our documents in place and that’s why we have a right to make legitimate concerns and to raise those as objections. The system that got us to where we are today did not allow for us to make an objection that we know is true; that is why now, this is when we have to make the objection,” she said.
Right after Elections Day, Hughes explained that objections were made by the APNU+AFC in five different regions and only two of the regions are now being dealt with. She said that such objections should be confirmed in the records of various poll books but it is “convenient” that several poll books are now either missing or were previously withheld from the process.
While President David Granger would have hailed the elections as free, fair and credible, speaking for herself, Hughes said that although this generally appeared to be the case, now that the ballot boxes are under greater scrutiny, there are serious questions that must be answered. She said: “All we’re saying is that we want a proper explanation.”
Source: https://issuu.com/guyanachroniclee-paper/docs/guyana_chronicle_epaper_16_05_2020