– Van West Charles report
The Richard Van West Charles campaign has said irregularities during registration and voting affected the results at the PNCR’s recently-concluded Biennial Congress.
In an election report, the Van West Charles campaign claims that the election process, from the registration of membership to the declaration of results at the Congress, revealed an attempt to undermine democracy within the main opposition party. “The results of the elections at the 16th Biennial Congress [are] not a reflection of the will of the party’s membership nor [are they] reflective of the will of the delegates who turned up,” the report concludes, adding “If irregularities did not exist Mr Winston Murray could have been elected leader.” It said too that the small amount of delegates voting undermined the credibility of the entire process, while pointing to the possibility that there could have been deliberate attempts to disenfranchise delegates.
The report has been submitted to party leader Robert Corbin, General Secretary Oscar Clarke and Chairman of the party’s Accreditation Committee Lance Carberry. Corbin was re-elected despite a strong challenge by Murray, winning overwhelmingly with 614 votes to 223 for his challenger. Murray has accepted the results despite flaws in procedures.
Meanwhile, Van West Charles, who dropped out of the leadership race to support Murray, has charged that the electoral process was “fraudulent” and that the party has been “hijacked through an illegal process by personal agendas” once again.
According to the Van West Charles report, there were six main factors that affected the results of the elections at the congress, being: discrimination in and limiting the distribution of Guyana Youth and Student Movement (GYSM) forms; discrimination in and limiting the distribution of membership forms in Regions Four and Ten; falsification of membership application; disenfranchisement at the point of registration; impersonation of accredited delegates; and multiple voting.
The report said application forms for membership were distributed in a discriminatory fashion among both the youth and adult members and particularly in Regions Four and Ten. It is claimed that persons “perceived as being opposed to Mr Robert Corbin” were denied forms to renew their membership. At the same time, it alleged that there was also a falsification of membership, based on a sample survey verification of the membership register conducted prior to the elections. The report noted that the sample used 310 names from 12 groups in six regions across the country, representing 3.7% of the total members. The sample contained 20 dead persons, 15 persons who migrated and 66 persons who were located and did not sign membership forms.
Based on concerns about the integrity of the membership register and weakness of the processes for registration and election, Van West Charles had proposed the use of photo IDs to identify delegates for registration and voting at the congress. However, the party leadership opted not to pursue this route.
The report said that irregularities in the registration process had significant impact on the elections of the party offices, with over 100 persons being disenfranchised, including a significant percentage of the delegates from Bartica and Linden. Further, it said that large numbers of persons who were not accredited obtained delegate badges and as a result were in a position to vote.
Dealing with the election process, the report noted that the voting for party leader was “embroiled in controversy with widespread allegations of multiple voting.” It noted that an exit count of delegates between voting for party leader and party chairman recorded 203 delegates, although the difference in the votes for party leader and party chairman was 350. “This suggests there were at least 137 multiple votes during voting for party leader,” the report said.
The report concluded that the irregularities were sufficient to have influenced the results in favour of Corbin. It was also critical of the poor response to concerns raised, accusing Carberry and other senior registration officials of a nonchalant attitude to the plight of disenfranchised delegates. Further, Returning Officer Joseph Harmon was criticised for failing to implement the agreements made in the meeting with the candidates, including ensuring secrecy of the ballot and the proper identification and verification of delegates as well as ensuring that the voting mechanism would prevent multiple voting.
Corbin has labelled the elections as transparent, while Carberry, who chaired the accreditation committee, did not receive any formal complaint or report on the concerns about the congress.
Harmon, meanwhile, has said that while there were a few issues prior to the start of the five-hour delayed elections they were ironed out. “To say that the process was fraudulent is a total misrepresentation and so I am surprised at the statements coming from Mr Van West Charles,” he told Stabroek News earlier this month. He insisted that he was not prepared to go through with or allow any slack system and so if at any point he had realized significant irregularities, he would have called off the elections.
Harmon said he has listened to and read of the reports about irregularities but he was involved in the electoral process before and was aware of the steps which are usually followed to ensure transparency. He pointed out that at this election much more was done in this regard. Harmon said too that he had confidence when it came to the steps taken after he was appointed which included controlling the ballots, issuing them, doing the roll call and the actual voting which included the use of transparent ballot boxes for the first time.
He said the ballot offices were manned by persons with no affiliation to the parties and when the voting was completed, the ballots were counted in full view of the delegates. Harmon said as each ballot was counted the name of the person in whose favour it was, was called out. He said the ballots were kept secured while the delegates were entitled to appoint persons to look into their interests.
Harmon, in his report, made reference to two separate incidents at one of the ballot stations where some persons who had voted before tried to cast votes again but this was sorted out. He indicated that there was a clear division between the delegates, causing people to place a sharp eye on each other. “So the claim of fraud is inaccurate at least from my standpoint because persons were looking at each other like hawks,” he said. He ruled out the possibility of multiple voting due to the level of scrutiny.
