PPP will not roll over and accept defeat – Jagdeo
Former President Bharrat Jagdeo
By Jomo Paul
[www.inewsguyana.com] – Former President, Bharrat Jagdeo says the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) is not giving up just yet, officially adding his voice to the Party’s decision not to concede victory in the hotly contested May 11 General and Regional Elections, results of which indicate a victory for the APNU+AFC coalition.
Jagdeo at a press conference on Thursday May 14, provided what he deemed “evidence” that indicates that the elections were rigged in favour of the APNU+AFC coalition.
The undeclared results of the election indicate that the APNU+AFC has managed to acquire 206, 817 votes while the PPP/C has acquired 201,457 votes, which means the coalition won by 5,360 votes.
The results effectively end a 23-year reign by the PPP/C which ascended to office in 1992 under the leadership of the late Dr Cheddi Jagan.
Several documents were provided by Jagdeo as “evidence”; he explained that they showed “glaring instances” where the figures on the statements of poll in the possession of the PPP/C counting agents do not correlate with the one’s in the possession of GECOM.
He pointed out that during the recounting process, the PPP counting agents had different numbers than those of the GECOM employees and provided “evidence” of this claim in seven instances.
The evidence provided by Jagdeo indicate that the PPP should have 320 more votes, but Jagdeo said he is certain that these instances are not isolated noting that “GECOM is using tons of fake statements of poll.”
He contended too that the “fake Statements of Poll” may have originated in GECOM but was unable to refute that there could be some inaccuracy on the part of the PPP with respect to the Statements of poll.
“We need to get over this process of victory and the PPP wants that to happen but one thing we will not do, we will not give up the right of the people who voted for us…there is a systematic attempt …plot to change results in GECOM itself and to tabulate those results in favor of the APNU+AFC,” said Jagdeo.
He said that the International Observers and ABC countries that have declared the elections free and fair “should be concerned about the differences” since it affects the credibility of their assessments.
“There has to be a full investigation, at the end of the day whoever wins these elections will have to live with these results, but the PPP is not going to just roll over,” said Jagdeo.
