Granger falsely claims that Coalition’s allegations caused recount
– Makes no mention of Mingo’s fraud
President David Granger yesterday falsely claimed that the ‘anomalies’ the Coalition claims to have riddled the March 2 elections were what led to the decision for a National Recount, when it was in fact complaints against the Region Four tabulation by Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo, in favour of the coalition, that preempted the recount.
“There is abundant evidence,” Granger told New York-based radio host Mark Benschop in an interview last night, “that certain persons or parties or agents or elements tried to manipulate the outcome by committing some errors, well not errors, deliberately committing certain actions in order to get an outcome in their favour. And this is why we had to have our recount. Because there are instances of persons who have died or migrated, there are votes recorded in their names. There are persons who were not properly identified who voted.”
It was President David Granger who, following the Mingo declaration of Friday, March 13, 2020, said that he did not want to be sworn in on the basis of declarations which, due to Mingo’s fraud, did not command the confidence of the international community and this was after strong messages from the international community, the United States government in particular, that they would not accept a swearing-in based on the Mingo figures.
“There are cases,” the President continued in last night’s interview, “in which persons from one district see their votes turning up in another district. There are cases of persons who have voted without certificates of employment. There are cases in which votes from one polling station turned up in another station. There are cases in which ballot boxes have turned up without poll books. There are too many anomalies to be ignored. That is the reason for the recount. That is the reason why CARICOM is here.”
The first CARICOM team came to Guyana in fact on the weekend of March 14, long before the coalition raised any of the claims mentioned by Granger. That team would eventually leave after Granger’s list candidate, Ulita Moore, filed a challenge to the legality of the recount on March 17, and this after the President had spent two days claiming to be seeking legal advice on the recount. Moore was represented by another Granger candidate, Roysdale Forde. It was this extended legal procedure, including
“That is the reason,” Granger told Benschop, “why we have had to wait a hundred days to get a report. We will continue to wait. We are patient because the democracy mustn’t be rushed. The people must be satisfied that the outcome is not fraudulent and all Guyanese, regardless of who they voted for, will be satisfied with the outcome.”
The Coalition had not made a single claim of irregularities occurring during the Election Day process until the recount began. Before that, Coalition campaign co-chair Joseph Harmon had said that the party had hoped Granger would be sworn in on the basis of the declarations in place at the time. However, the international observers and other political parties had protested the repeated instances of fraud proliferated by Mingo when he made declarations on two instances. Both were proven by the recount to have been based on fraudulent tabulations. In his address last night, although he spoke about manipulations of the vote prior to the beginning of the recount, he made no mention of Clairmont Mingo, either directly or directly. Indeed, senior members of the Coalition have avoided referring to Mingo, even when asked directly.
The President had only previously mentioned reports of, but did not confirm that he believed there were irregularities which corrupted the elections, until last night’s interview. All the while, his Coalition had been making numeropis allegations of fraud from the onset of the recount, none of which it has been substantiated.
He had, in a June 6 statement, only stated “Everyone is aware of numerous reports of irregularities including unstamped ballots, deceased and migrant voters and missing poll books. Those irregularities appear to have been committed intentionally, not accidentally, and demonstrate a pattern of manipulation of the electoral process.”
Last night is the first time that President has fully embraced the Coalition’s claims of widespread fraud in the electoral process. This is a significant departure from his previous commitment to respect the will of GECOM and to stand by the outcome of the recount.