Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo is of the view that the governing coalition, A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) is attempting to get the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to annul the March 2 general and regional elections.

Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo

He made this statement duration a rare appearance at the National Recount media centre, outside the Arthur Chung Conference Centre on Wednesday.
Why would APNU+AFC want the elections annulled? Jagdeo believes it is because the coalition knows it lost the elections, and that it does not want the actual results to be considered and accepted by GECOM as official.
It may be puzzling to some that APNU+AFC would want to have the elections annulled, since the party has maintained that it won the elections.
But Jagdeo is sure that Region Four Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo is part of a coalition-sponsored attempt to rig the elections in favour of the governing party.
“[APNU+AFC] knew that once the recount started, the recount would reveal – once it’s done transparently – the recount would reveal the plot to rig the elections,” Jagdeo said in a virtual press conference yesterday.
How would the coalition go about getting GECOM to annul the elections? The theory of the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) is that the coalition will use the recount to do so.
The coalition has been raising a series of claims and allegations of discrepancies during the recount, and it said that those claims are so grave and numerous that they could call into question the credibility of the entire elections process.
The AFC column in the last Sunday edition of this newspaper states “Coalition representatives Sherod Duncan and Mr. James Bond had pointed to a situation in District One where almost 600 persons who had died or migrated were recorded as having voted.”
Though these claims were noted by GECOM, they are not been substantiated, and GECOM has made a point that its language in relation to those claims will make that very clear.
Jagdeo said “Their actions are all intent on discrediting the process…. But they will not succeed.”
The coalition has been having a difficult time expressing its position on the March 2 general and regional elections in a way that adds up. This is evidenced by recent statements by various party members, and even its leader, David Granger.
While being questioned recently, AFC executive, David Patterson said that the party had wanted GECOM to rely on Mingo’s declaration to declare a victor, even as his AFC colleague, Leonard Craig, said that the many claimed anomalies call into question the credibility of the elections and, consequently, the credibility of the elections results.
A few days ago, Craig, who is a recount supervisor for the coalition, said that the anomalies the party is alleging during the recount, were observed since Election Day. But this claim is not reflected in the public statements of the party and its members in the weeks following Election Day.
The party has maintained, from Election Day up to the beginning of the recount process, that the elections of March were free, fair and credible. It even hired an international public relations firm to convince the international community, among other things, that the elections were free, fair and credible.
But from the moment the alleged discrepancies started to accumulate, the party made a complete 180-degree turn, and started questioning the credibility of the process.
This happened, just as evidence began to surface of clear disparities between Mingo’s numbers and the numbers coming out of the National Recount.
Explaining the purported need for such a strategy that questions the credibility of the elections, Jagdeo said “APNU is in a very bad position… they had to change their game plan”.
He contends that that is also why the coalition does not want to release its statements of poll, as it fears the publication of those would expose its loss and its purported attempt to rig the elections.
The coalition has given varied reasons for not wanting to release its statements of poll, though it has agreed that releasing those statements would be the logical thing to do.
It was beckoned to do so by reporters, even up to yesterday, when AFC executive, David Patterson showed up at the media centre.
Reporters reasoned that it would be beneficial to release the statements of poll, since the party doubted the statement of Former Jamaica Prime Minister and Organisation of American States (OAS) Observer Mission Chief, Bruce Golding.
Golding on Wednesday had provided numbers for the votes cast in favour of APNU+AFC and PPP/C, for four district four ballot boxes. Presenting numbers from the statements of poll, statements of recount and numbers presented by Region Four Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo, Golding showed how Mingo’s figures were clearly altered to increase the votes granted to APNU+AFC and decrease the votes granted to PPP/C.
Reporters explained that it would be beneficial for APNU+AFC to release its statements of poll which, if the coalition’s position is true, would show that Golding has been untrue in his preliminary OAS report on the electoral process.
Patterson was asked seven times about the release of the coalition’s statements of poll, and he flouted the question every time, only offering to release the party’s tabulation.
He said that the party would address Golding’s claims “frontally”, at one point saying that the coalition would make such an address using the statements of recount coming out of the current process. But Kaieteur News has verified the accuracy of Golding’s figures of the statements of recount. The statements are being published by GECOM during its daily tabulation from 4:00pm to 6:30pm on its Facebook page, and remain on the page for public scrutiny.
The public, moreover, awaits the coalition’s promised “frontal” address of Golding’s statements, as well as all disparities between Mingo’s figures and the statements of recount, which continue to arise during the recount process.