PPP continues protest at GECOM

It has been more than a year since the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) was unseated after 23 years

PPP/C supporters picketing GECOM’s office on Tuesday

in Government; however, the Party was still adamant that the May 2015 Elections were rigged.
In this vein, scores of PPP members and supporters once again gathered outside the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Head Office on High Street, Kingston, reiterating calls for the removal of its Chairman, Dr Steve Surujbally and the recounting of ballots from last year’s polls.
The peaceful picketing exercise was held on Tuesday morning and saw persons holding up placards with slogans such as: “Cheated not Defeated”; “Elections 2015 was rigged” and “Recount our votes”.
The procession was led by PPP Executive Member Neil Kumar.
Since the declaration of the results of the 2015 General and Regional Elections, the PPP/C has refused to accept its 201,457 to 206,817 loss to the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) coalition. The Party cited various inconsistencies with the electoral process including fake Statement of Polls (SoPs) and has since made several calls for Dr Surujbally to be removed.
The GECOM Chairman told this newspaper last year during the height of the protest actions that he would not be intimidated, pointing out that it was not the first time such slurs and abuse were hurled against him.
He posits that the protest action by the PPP Opposition is “not as reprehensive and loathsome, as it is comedic”.
Dr Surujbally went on to explain that there was a menu of measures that would preclude any rigging, adding that it would take a massive conspiracy to do such and such acts could not be invisible.
Meanwhile, in furtherance of its claims, the PPP/C had filed an elections petition on June 24 last year, asking the High Court to grant a number of orders, including one for the nullification of the May 11 Elections as well as an order for new elections to be held.
Some of the grounds laid out in the Elections Petition include: valid ballots being wrongly deemed rejected; SOPs used to ascertain the results contain arithmetic errors; multiple voting by persons and impersonation of persons; PPP/C ballot attendants and polling agents being prevented from accompanying the ballot boxes, and fraudulent SOPs.
At a recent press conference, Rohee had expressed his disappointment over the pace at which the election petition case was being heard. The PPP General Secretary accused the judiciary of unnecessarily delaying the setting of a date for the election petition to go to trial, noting that the delay was worrisome.