Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall has written to Chair of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), retired Justice Claudette Singh requesting the documents reportedly presented to her by the APNU+AFC during the recount process for the March 2020 polls.
The documents requested seemingly contain immigration and death records of a number of persons the APNU+AFC alleged that votes were illegally cast for in the elections. The coalition had claimed that votes were cast for persons who were out of the country. However, this was dispelled by a number of independent media verifications but it is a contention that the party still holds on to.
In his letter dated August 30, Nandlall said that he is acting on behalf of the government. He added there are media reports in which the APNU+AFC, which formed the government at the time, claimed that it delivered documents containing information of deceased persons who purportedly voted at those elections; that the elections were tainted by multiple voting; and that persons who were overseas on voting day, purportedly voted at those elections.
“These allegations continue to be peddled in the public domain by leaders and representatives of the aforesaid political entity. At the time and until now, the impression conveyed is that these documents and/or data were generated by and obtained from the official lawful repository of the specific information, for example, the Immigration Department, Guyana Police Force and the General Registrar’s Office.
“You will appreciate that these are grave allegations, and as baseless and unfounded as they were proven to be, it is important that the relevant state agency enquires into the source of this information, upon whose directions they were sourced, and perhaps, most importantly, to officially reconfirm their inaccuracy, for the public record. In the circumstances, I hereby request a copy of these documents to initiate this process,” Nandlall said in his letter to Justice Singh.
It is unclear whether the GECOM Chair has responded or not.
On his weekly programme ‘Issues in the News’, aired on Tuesday night, Nandlall said that the APNU+AFC continues to publicly peddle the “discredited narrative” that there was multiple voting in the 2020 elections. He reminded that the CARICOM Observer Team rejected the contention by the APNU+AFC.
“As a result on behalf of the Government of Guyana, I wrote to the Chairperson of GECOM requesting the documents that were supplied to her by the APNU+AFC during the recount process…as I said that the information was completely discredited because persons themselves came forward whose names appeared on those documents as being in America…they asserted that they were in Guyana and voted legally. Some of them were labelled as dead and they confirmed that they are alive and voted on elections day,” Nandlall told his viewers.
He said that the documents were requested so that the agencies implicated can conduct investigations to determine the authenticity, accuracy and veracity of the information. Additionally, the agencies will be tasked with determining who authorized the preparation of the documents.
“At the end of this inquiry and or investigation, whatever laws were violated, if any, will be enforced by the relevant law enforcement agencies. And if there is evidence to yield criminal charges then criminal charges shall be instituted and shall be prosecuted in accordance with the law,” he added.
During the five-month-long post-election period, Stabroek News reported a number of instances where the APNU+AFC’s claims of dead or migrated persons voting were discredited by the very people themselves.
