PPP Commissioners call out Alexander… – say ‘half-truths, misinformation’ must be clarified
THREE Commissioners with the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) called out Mr. Vincent Alexander, another Commissioner, on “half-truths and misinformation” pertaining to the 2015 General and Regional Election results and contend that despite this his statements corroborate their primary concerns – the falsification of Statements of Polls (SoPs). In a detailed joint statement, Commissioners Mohamood Shaw, Athmaram Mangar and Sase Gunraj sought to answer the assertions presented by Alexander in a recent statement.
Mohamood Shaw
“We believe that it is in the best interest of all concerned that the record be clarified, having regard to the fulminations of Mr. Alexander carried in the press,” they said.
Alexander’s comments were included in a response to a statement made by the three commissioners who detailed several attempts to have a number of irregularities discovered in the electoral process addressed, attempts they contend proved futile – irregularities also raised by the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/C).
On the basis of the flagged irregularities, recounts were requested before and after the official declarations were made but these were rejected. Also denied was the PPP/C request for the SoPs, Tally Sheets and a breakdown of results of each Polling Division or Ballot Boxes.
Alexander had said, “The Chief Election Officer produced credible results that I and others felt comfortable with and approved. The aforementioned respond to the central, critical and fundamental concerns raised by the three Commissioners in their press release and clears the air on the question of the credibility of the results, since the Statements of Poll originating from the Returning Officers and eventually used by the Chief Election Officer were not compromised or invalidated.”
On that basis, he is now facing several questions by his three colleague commissioners:
* How does Mr. Alexander know that the Statements of Poll originating from the Returning Officer and eventually used by the Chief Election Officer were not compromised or invalidated?
* Did he examine them?
* Did anyone examine them against any authenticity criteria?
* Were they examined against the fake Statements of Poll?
* How many fake Statements of Poll do exist?
* Where did they originate from?
* At which point were they introduced into the GECOM system?
* Who introduced the fake statements into the GECOM system?
* Who investigated them, if any investigation was done at all?
* Where are those fake Statements of Poll now?
* Why do the Chairman, Chief Elections Officer and the other Commissioners believe that it is not important to make this information available to the public?
* What is there to hide?
GROSSLY MISCHIEVOUS
Alexander had also said, “It was determined in the hours leading up to the final declarations that GECOM had to deliberately disregard several documents from its own Information Technology (IT) Department. This was because of emerging evidence that all was not right with those IT result and that some fake Statements of Poll (SOPs) somehow entered GECOM.”
However, this was disputed and termed “grossly inaccurate, misleading and mischievous.”
The three Commissioners said, “The methodology that was unanimously approved by the Commission required that all Statements of Poll be received by the Logistics Department for logging, then forwarded to at least two Commissioners, one each from governing and opposition parties, respectively, for their initials.
Athmaram Mangar
“Only after this was done were Statements of Poll forwarded to the IT Department, for processing. It must, therefore, be clear, that no fake Statement of Poll could have originated from the IT Department, but must have passed through the Logistics Department then to the Commissioners.”
The fact that Alexander himself confirmed this was also highlighted.
“Mr. Alexander’s own admission, said,“…. a count by the Information Technology (IT) Department after the statements bound for the Chief Elections Officer would have been delivered to GECOM, signed off on by at least two present Commissioners and transmitted to IT for tabulation, after which they should have been transmitted to the CEO’s office for custodial purpose.”
On that note, the Commissioners stated that to date the IT Department has still not received all the Statements of Poll.
“Yet a declaration of the results of the elections was approved by a majority decision of the Commission and done by the Chief Elections Officer,” the commissioners argued.
They added that Alexander is aware of this and other material facts of consideration and as such concluded that his omission of these is not coincidental.
The statement said, “Mr. Alexander is aware that the IT Department was ordered to cease operations. Mr. Alexander is also aware that a report which emanated from the IT Department and which established major differences in numbers between its aggregation and that of the Chief Elections Officer was withdrawn by the Chairman. We believe that Mr. Alexander’s failure to include this in his missive is not coincidental.
“…we agree with Mr. Alexander that the Chief Election Officer has a duty to tabulate the results and we believe that the report from the IT Department would have assisted him in this regard. The question is whether this was done. We are saying that this was not done. The IT Department was ordered to cease its operations.
“…Mr. Alexander corroborates our contention when he stated that, “…the ten declarations from the respective districts were to be used as the basis for the Chief Election Officer’s summative count; the calculation of the allocation of seats; and the presentation of a report to the Commission, for its approval, prior to the final declaration of results and allocation of seats.”
WHY REFUSE A RECOUNT
Taking on Alexander’s comment that the officially declared results emanated from an above the board process, the three commissioners questioned why the request for a recount by the PPP/C was refused.
“Mr. Alexander has insisted that ‘the results were above board and it was based on verified figures signed off by officials present at the polling stations’. If Mr. Alexander is so convinced then there is no reason why he should not agree to a recount – is there?” the three men questioned.
The trio added, “We must ask of Mr. Alexander, the Chief Elections Officer, the Chairman of GECOM and all of those who declared the elections to be above board, why they are so grounded in their denial of a recount of the votes in the ballot boxes? Why the reluctance to provide the disaggregated results by polling division? Why the refusal to provide the requested Statements of Poll? What is there to conceal?”
SAME REASONS
Sase Gunraj
Taking together Alexander’s points of contention, the three Commissioners made clear that he “hit the nail on the head” by pointing out that the problem is the falsified Statements of Polls.
Alexander had said, “The most critical point to note is that the three most relevant authorities (Returning Officers, the Chief Elections Officer and the political parties) should have been in possession of the original and identical statements of polls.”
On that note, the three Commissioners said, “Mr. Alexander has hit the nail on the head. The problem is that the Statements of Polls in the possession of the “three most relevant authorities” materially differ. This debacle is compounded by the Chief Elections Officer’s own admission that fake Statements of Poll penetrated GECOM machinery.
“We are baffled by this bold assertion of Mr. Alexander. These are the very reasons why we did not vote in favour of the declaration of the results because we insisted that some process be embarked upon that would have investigated, if not, reconciled these differences.”
EVIDENCE PROVIDED
Relative to Alexander’s contention that no evidence was provided to support the claim of irregularities, the three Commissioners said, “This is simply an outrageous statement. That the Statements of Poll in the possession of the Returning Officers are corrupted, some are fakes, some are tainted with irregularities, are the very gravamen of our contention. The verification exercise conducted by the Returning Officers with the political parties confirmed this.
“We are not sure how Mr. Alexander can profess to have knowledge of the Statements of Poll used by the Returning Officers and those in the possession of the parties. That assertion of his, alone, is shocking.
…Mr. Alexander acknowledges that it is true that People’s Progressive Party/Civic sought to question approximately 22 Statements of Poll in the case of District 4, but in no instance did they present original Statements of Poll as the basis for their contention. We reject this contention absolutely. Photocopies of 22 Statements of Poll, accompanied by a spreadsheet, were presented to the entire Commission by a delegation of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic. Neither Mr. Alexander, nor any other member who was present, requested original documents.”
The trio added, “…Mr. Alexander stressed that it was agreed that the Chief Elections Officer would investigate the apparent corrupting of the system, but not at the expense of delaying the production of credible results.
“We, as Commissioners, are totally unaware of any such decision and vehemently dispute that any such decision was taken. The reality is that when the Chief Elections Officer reported his findings to the Commission, we agreed that he should set aside the fake Statements of Poll for investigation and that he should continue with the application of the methodology approved by the Commission.
“The Commission never agreed that he should use the Returning Officers’ Statements of Poll. How could we have done that without first determining the origin of the fake Statements of Poll?”
The three noted too that Alexander did not mention that the Chief Elections Officer reported to the Commission that he saw Statements of Poll with in excess of 100 per cent votes more than persons registered to vote at the concerned polling station.
“Why did Mr. Alexander omit these very crucial pieces of information?” they questioned.
All considered, the trio repeated the request made for the requested information, in a preliminary effort to give validity to their positions that the elections were not rigged, to be released.
(Vanessa Narine)