Chief Election Officer's first calculation had given PPPC parliamentary majority
Written by Denis Scott Chabrol
Wednesday, 04 January 2012 15:59 DEMERARA WAVES
The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) almost gave the Peoples Progressive Party Civic (PPPC) a 33-seat majority due to a miscalculation by the Chief Election Officer, Gocool Boodoo- a scenario he has denied.
“I have no knowledge of that. I am not aware of that,” Boodoo told Demerara Waves Online News (www.demwaves.com).
But official minutes of the commission meeting on election results day- November 30- tell another story that has been corroborated by a GECOM insider.
Noting that the Chief Election Officer is required by law to present the results to the commission before a final declaration is made, the source said Boodoo’s calculation was erroneous. Commissioner, Vincent Alexander unearthed the discrepancy and it was re-calculated based on the formula to reflect the PPPC getting 32 seats, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) 26 and the Alliance For Change seven. All of the commissioners then accepted the results.
Demwaves.com was told that Alexander had objected to the first calculation that had given the PPPC 33 seats with 48.57 percent of the votes, the AFC six seats and APNU 26 seats.
Alexander has declined to comment on the issue.
The error was discovered even as Boodoo and the Chairman of the Elections Commission, Dr. Steve Surujbally were eager to go across to the Pegasus Hotel to declare the final results. If that had been done, the accuracy could have been challenged only by an elections petition that could have taken five years.
Demwaves.com further understands from another reliable source that the Chief Elections Officer’s calculation had excluded the 25 constituency seats and only taken the 40 seats into consideration. This source noted that 48.57 percent being equivalent to 33 seats or more than half of the 65 seats in the National Assembly “seemed to fly in the face of proportionality.”
One source insisted that Boodoo had already circulated certified copies of the results to the commissioners before the error was spotted. A number of commissioners are said to still be in possession of copies of the certified but inaccurate results.
When contacted, Commissioner Dr. Keshav Mangal, however, told Demwaves.com that “no results were certified that was changed.” He declined to comment on the statistical specifics when put to him but he emphasized that the commission ensured that accurate results were declared after “minor adjustments”, “cross-checking and verification.”
“The commission had all the steps taken to ensure that what came out was the true result.
I don’t know about those kinds of changes but I know that anything was finally put out would have had the final blessings of the full commission,” said Mangal, who was chosen by the governing party to be a commissioner.
Another Commissioner, Charles Corbin- the third person to have corroborated that the first set of results that was presented to the Commission for approval was wrong-told demwaves.com that all the commissioners present agreed that there was a mistake.
“What jumped out at the Commission was that the numbers, as presented by him, showing that the PPP had less than 50 percent was going to be allocated more than 50 percent of the seats,” he said.
The delay in the declaration of the results, Corbin recalled, was due to the fact the results for Region Four had not been made until after 12 O’clock on November 30- the day that the results had been announced.
Meanwhile, when military intelligence picked up that there was discrepancy in the results, they had expressed concern in certain quarters that the political violence could have erupted if nothing had been done to ensure that the results had been acceptable to all parties.
The tension was also diffused, according to political insiders, when the presidential and prime ministerial candidates of the three contesting parties agreed to hold talks on the way forward in light of the minority PPPC government.
APNU wants to verify the results by gaining access to the hard-copies of GECOM's Statements of Poll rather than the scanned versions which they say has already thrown up a number of undisclosed discrepancies.
APNU's unofficial youth-arm, Youth Coalition for Transformation (YCT), has been calling for the resignation of Boodoo and Surujbally and for GECOM to be reformed before the holding of local government or the next national and regional elections.
Written by Denis Scott Chabrol
Wednesday, 04 January 2012 15:59 DEMERARA WAVES
The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) almost gave the Peoples Progressive Party Civic (PPPC) a 33-seat majority due to a miscalculation by the Chief Election Officer, Gocool Boodoo- a scenario he has denied.
“I have no knowledge of that. I am not aware of that,” Boodoo told Demerara Waves Online News (www.demwaves.com).
But official minutes of the commission meeting on election results day- November 30- tell another story that has been corroborated by a GECOM insider.
Noting that the Chief Election Officer is required by law to present the results to the commission before a final declaration is made, the source said Boodoo’s calculation was erroneous. Commissioner, Vincent Alexander unearthed the discrepancy and it was re-calculated based on the formula to reflect the PPPC getting 32 seats, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) 26 and the Alliance For Change seven. All of the commissioners then accepted the results.
Demwaves.com was told that Alexander had objected to the first calculation that had given the PPPC 33 seats with 48.57 percent of the votes, the AFC six seats and APNU 26 seats.
Alexander has declined to comment on the issue.
The error was discovered even as Boodoo and the Chairman of the Elections Commission, Dr. Steve Surujbally were eager to go across to the Pegasus Hotel to declare the final results. If that had been done, the accuracy could have been challenged only by an elections petition that could have taken five years.
Demwaves.com further understands from another reliable source that the Chief Elections Officer’s calculation had excluded the 25 constituency seats and only taken the 40 seats into consideration. This source noted that 48.57 percent being equivalent to 33 seats or more than half of the 65 seats in the National Assembly “seemed to fly in the face of proportionality.”
One source insisted that Boodoo had already circulated certified copies of the results to the commissioners before the error was spotted. A number of commissioners are said to still be in possession of copies of the certified but inaccurate results.
When contacted, Commissioner Dr. Keshav Mangal, however, told Demwaves.com that “no results were certified that was changed.” He declined to comment on the statistical specifics when put to him but he emphasized that the commission ensured that accurate results were declared after “minor adjustments”, “cross-checking and verification.”
“The commission had all the steps taken to ensure that what came out was the true result.
I don’t know about those kinds of changes but I know that anything was finally put out would have had the final blessings of the full commission,” said Mangal, who was chosen by the governing party to be a commissioner.
Another Commissioner, Charles Corbin- the third person to have corroborated that the first set of results that was presented to the Commission for approval was wrong-told demwaves.com that all the commissioners present agreed that there was a mistake.
“What jumped out at the Commission was that the numbers, as presented by him, showing that the PPP had less than 50 percent was going to be allocated more than 50 percent of the seats,” he said.
The delay in the declaration of the results, Corbin recalled, was due to the fact the results for Region Four had not been made until after 12 O’clock on November 30- the day that the results had been announced.
Meanwhile, when military intelligence picked up that there was discrepancy in the results, they had expressed concern in certain quarters that the political violence could have erupted if nothing had been done to ensure that the results had been acceptable to all parties.
The tension was also diffused, according to political insiders, when the presidential and prime ministerial candidates of the three contesting parties agreed to hold talks on the way forward in light of the minority PPPC government.
APNU wants to verify the results by gaining access to the hard-copies of GECOM's Statements of Poll rather than the scanned versions which they say has already thrown up a number of undisclosed discrepancies.
APNU's unofficial youth-arm, Youth Coalition for Transformation (YCT), has been calling for the resignation of Boodoo and Surujbally and for GECOM to be reformed before the holding of local government or the next national and regional elections.
