Rohee complains over delay in hearing PPP/C elections petition

The People’s Progressive Party (PPP) is concerned about the delay with respect to the hearing of the elections petition filed by one of its parliamentarians, challenging the outcome of the 2015 general and regional elections.

At the party’s weekly press conference yesterday, the party’s General Secretary Clement Rohee said that it was “troubling and worrisome that a date has not yet been fixed for the petition to be heard and no explicable reason has been offered for the delay, thereby rendering it another case where ‘justice delayed is justice denied.’”

He said too that the party is also concerned that the elections were “unlawfully conducted and that results of the said elections were affected by unlawful actions.”

PPP/C parliamentarian Ganga Persaud had filed a petition, in June last year, calling on the court to declare the entire May 11, 2015 general elections process flawed and containing many procedural errors and so many instances of fraudulent and/or suspicious actions that “the results that have been derived from the process cannot be credibly deemed to represent accurately the will of the electorate.”

He had also asked the court to order a recount of all ballots cast in the elections.

Although Chief Election Officer Keith Lowenfield had moved to the court to have the petition struck out, former acting chief justice Ian Chang had dismissed his application. Lowenfield has since appealed the decision.

The opposition party’s position since the May 11, 2015 general elections is that it has been robbed of votes through a carefully planned rigging process on the part of the APNU+AFC coalition. Local and international observers have, however, declared that the polls were free and fair.