The PPP is confident that it has enough evidence to successfully put together an elections petition, according to executive member Anil Nandlall, who said yesterday that the failure of the Guyana Elections Commission (Gecom) to release information that was requested will not deter the party from moving to the courts.
“This (the refusal to hand over information) does not detract from the strength of the case but it changes the contents of the petition,” Nandlall told Stabroek News, when asked whether there are any fears that the party’s case would not be strong enough to stand up in court without the statistical data requested.
The PPP/C has refused to accept that the APNU+AFC alliance has won this year’s elections and that coalition leader David Granger is the President. Former president Donald Ramotar and other senior members of the party have accused the coalition of rigging the elections, while challenging pronouncements from observer missions that the elections were free and fair.
Nandlall, the former Attorney General, said in addition to the filing of an elections petition, the party intends to hold protest marches and public meetings throughout the country to highlight “the violations of democracy which occurred at the May 11th, regional and general elections.” Ramotar, ministers of the former government and party supporters protested near Gecom a week ago. They chanted and held placards calling for Gecom Chairman Steve Surujbally to be removed from office. They also held a mini rally in Berbice on Independence Day.
Nandlall, who continuously insisted that irregularities and fraud took place during the elections, did not state when the petition is expected to be filed. “The PPP/C are in the process of preparing the elections petition,” he, however, assured.
The PPP/C is continuing to call on Gecom to provide copies of the results from polling stations as well as copies of the Statements of Poll (SoPs) which Chief Election Officer Keith Lowenfield used to calculate the results.
He said that in excess of three letters written by Ramotar have been sent to Lowenfield but to date there has been no response. Stabroek News was unable to make contact with Lowenfield to get a comment.
Nandlall also said PPP-nominated commissioner Sase Gunraj had also written requesting information. “What is outrageous is that this information which we are requesting is not even being given to our commissioners. If they don’t want to give us, they can give the commissioners… the Commission is responsible for the administering of these elections. We have three commissioners sitting on the commission. It is not the Chairman and the CEO alone,” he said.
“How can one regard this elections as transparent when the commissioners are saying that they are unsure of what basis these results were compiled?” Nandlall added. He also said it is significant that due to the lack of information, the PPP-nominated commissioners did not approve the results which were declared. “They did not sign on because vital information requested was not given to them,” he said.
Further, he explained that a request was also made for a report from the Information and Technology Department of Gecom but that too was withheld. He said that prior to the elections the commissioners had requested the names of Presiding Officers, Assistant Presiding Officers and Clerks designated to work at the 2,299 polling stations but that too was not handed over.
“So the Gecom machinery is far from transparent,” he said, before adding that it is unfortunate that while the commissioners were trying to get information from Gecom, international observer teams were making pronouncements that the elections were free and fear. He said that an important component of the process—compilation and accuracy of the results—was being questioned by commissioners of Gecom.
“We believe that we still have a strong case but this information from Gecom would have assisted us in determining the manner in which the elections petition would have been presented,” he added.
