coalition candidate and former Member of Parliament (MP) James Bond
In a sudden twist of events surrounding the March 2, 2020, General and Regional Elections, a senior member of the APNU+AFC is now accusing his own party’s agents of a grand conspiracy to oust the party from office.
In a 57-minute long video posted to his Facebook profile on Friday, coalition candidate and former Member of Parliament (MP) James Bond accused APNU+AFC agents of a “criminal collusion” as the ongoing national recount of votes show a lead of more than 16,000 by the opposition PPP.
“Those agents, so-called agents, that persons are saying belong to APNU+AFC who were in those places when these things happened, shame on you. If you were there at all, shame on you. Shame on you,” Bond said.
The APNU+AFC has embarked on a campaign to discredit the March 2 polls after previously claiming victory, with their leader David Granger, even attending a victory party after the first fraudulent declaration by District Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo.
In early March, Mingo fraudulently inflated the number of votes for the Coalition during the tabulation, but this was exposed by stakeholders who were in possession of the Statement of Polls (SOPs) from the 897 polling stations in the District.
The Coalition has refused to release its SOPs which it claims is proof of its victory, while the copies of the SOPs released by the PPP shows that party comfortably winning the elections by more than 15,000 votes. The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has also refused to release its SOPs despite doing so in the past.
Several legal battles which challenged the declarations made from Mingo’s fraudulent tabulation exercise in March resulted in a national recount which is expected to conclude in two days.
But with a victory expected to be handed to the PPP if the recount results are used, the Coalition is maintaining that the polls, which it still claims to have won, is marred by fraud and irregularities.
“It is impossible for us to accept that it is anything but collusion, criminal collusion to have in so many of these boxes… 85% of the boxes there is gross irregularities. Illicit examples of fraud,” Bond added.
As of June 5, the APNU+AFC claimed that of the 1,957 ballot boxes recounted, 1,052 were affected by numerical irregularities. The Coalition earlier this week said in a statement that the results from the recount will not be credible and should not be used to declare a winner.
However, the Elections Observer Missions (EOM) of both the Organisation of American States (OAS) and the Commonwealth, and foreign powers including the U.S, Canada, European Union and the U.K. have called for all parties to respect its results.
Both President David Granger and Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo, who agreed to the recount, had committed to accepting its results.
The APNU+AFC continues to allege that these irregularities involve persons voting in the name of dead people and individuals who were not in Guyana on elections day.
All the Coalition has, however, provided is an unverified list of names.