A source on the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has confirmed that there was originally to be a declaration that the elections was won by the PPP/C with a majority in Parliament but this was scuppered after it was pointed out that there had been a miscalculation in the allocation of seats.
This charge first surfaced at an A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) press conference about two weeks ago. Had such a declaration been made there could have been serious difficulties in reversing it. In the 2006 election even though there was a recognition within GECOM that an error had been made in terms of the assigning of a Region 10 seat to the PPP/C instead of the AFC, the latter was left to challenge the matter in court as GECOM said the original declaration of results could not be modified. The challenge was later struck out on procedural grounds.
Speaking with Stabroek News yesterday, a commission source said that “it was in fact one of the Opposition commissioners who raised an objection,” and that “it was obvious” that something was not right with the results.
Pressed for a response on the accusation from APNU, a source close to the CEO of GECOM said that the calculation of seat allocation which was presented based on the number of votes garnered by the parties was found to be erroneous. “The error was observed upon checks of the CEO’s submission being perused by commissioners to which the calculations were submitted for ratification,” the source said.
The source said too that the error was shared with the CEO and every member of the Commission “and was accepted unanimously as an error.”
According to the source, the seat allocation was subsequently adjusted accordingly, “thereafter the Commissioners gave approval to the CEO to make the official declaration.” The final announcement of the results of the elections came on the afternoon of December 1, 2011.
Delay
Meanwhile, a Commissioner with whom this newspaper spoke hit out at critics of GECOM who felt the results took an inordinately long time to be announced.
He said that the media should have been more proactive in obtaining the results which he said would have been posted outside of the polling stations.
He said too that legally the declaration of results is done regionally by each Returning Officer for each of the ten electoral districts. The Commissioner said that if there is a challenge to be made to the elections this challenge is not made centrally. “It is the ten declarations that provide the results. The declaration for the National Assembly is what the Chief Election Officer does,” said the Commissioner with whom this newspaper spoke.
He said that the CEO makes his declaration on the basis of the declarations of the ten Returning Officers. “The CEO must wait on the ten Returning Officers. The CEO can do nothing until all ten regions or electoral districts,” the Commissioner told the Stabroek News yesterday.
Regarding the delays in the announcement of the results of the November 28, 2011 national and regional elections, he said that the Region 4 results came in until midday on November 29, 2011.
Further, Stabroek News has learnt that the final declaration of the November 28 national and regional elections has not yet been gazetted because of the yet to be submitted list of candidates for all the parties.
This is according to Vishnu Persaud, the Public Relations Officer at the GECOM. The reason for the delay is the tussle for the position of Speaker of the National Assembly among the three parties entering the Tenth Parliament. The choice for Speaker is bound to affect the shape of the list of MPs to be submitted by A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance For Change. APNU wants either Deborah Backer or PNCR Chairman Cammie Ramsaroop as Speaker; the PPP/C is proposing former Speaker Ralph Ramkarran while the AFC is proposing Moses Nagamootoo for the post.
Persaud said that all of the parties still have to indicate in writing who will be appointed as councilors on the RDCs and that these persons have to be drawn from the list submitted by each party contesting the elections.
This newspaper was informed that there has been no further word on a date for the meeting of the parties to discuss the issue of the Speaker for the Tenth Parliament.
