A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) says that it hopes to get to the bottom of what it described as discrepancies found while verifying Statements of Poll (SOPs) for the November 28, 2011 elections, having written GECOM asking to avail itself of an offer made for interested parties to examine the hardcopies of the SOPs.
Speaking at APNU’s press briefing held yesterday, Vice Chairman of the partnership Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine said that the party is not expected to find anything “overly dramatic” by the end of the process.
“We are hoping to identify whether or not there was deliberate attempts to mislead us in relation to the SOPs. We have to ensure that we are not in the presence of duplicity,” he said. APNU, along with the other parties that contested the elections, had received electronic copies of the SOPs from GECOM.
Asked whether APNU checked their copies of SOPs with the ones that the AFC has, Dr. Roopnaraine said that the party “has done some of that.” He said that while the APNU has made use of whatever opportunities there were to see SOPs … “we still require the hard copies at GECOM,” he said.
He said that on the issue of the SOPs, the party has come to the end of what it could do with what they were given.
“What the report tells us is that the verification process requires another stage because there were really too many discrepancies that we found between the SOPs in our possession and the SOPs that were on the CDs. We had written Dr. [Steve] Surujbally on this matter because he had on a previous occasion said that he was quite willing to provide space for us to come into GECOM and look at the original hardcopies of the SOPs and we want to take him up on that,” he said.
“We do believe that we want to put these hardcopies next to each other and see what accounts for some of the discrepancies we have been finding,” he said.
He added that the party has been very reluctant to give partial results as they went along the process. “We would like to issue a complete report to the public in terms of our findings. What I can tell you is that we are not likely to conclude with anything that is overly dramatic in relation to the findings. The findings will reveal that the entire electoral machinery is in desperate need of complete overhaul. We cannot continue to run elections the way we have been running them,” he said.
Dr. Roopnaraine said that there are far too many flaws in Guyana’s electoral system and in the end we believe what we have to be looking at is the entire situation at GECOM. “Do we want to maintain a political Commission or do we want to do like the entire Commonwealth and have a non-political Commission,” he said.
Dr. Roopnaraine said with regard to the revelations about the miscalculations at GECOM, this would not be the first time that this has occurred. “Inaccuracies and wrong counting at GECOM are not new. It has happened before and it may well happen again. Some of the reports coming out are accurate in relation to what happened at the Commission,” Dr. Roopnaraine said.
Roopnaraine was then asked about the party’s thoughts on the position of the AFC’s Khemraj Ramjattan on that party’s choice for Speaker. Ramjattan is reported to have said that the party is adamant about Moses Nagamootoo as their choice for Speaker and chided APNU for criticisms leveled against him.
“We are hoping that the AFC would not adhere to dogmatic and inflexible positions. I saw the statement by Ramjattan and I don’t believe that that kind of rigidity is helpful to negotiations but we will continue to meet with them and test the various options that we are putting on the table. The APNU is as eager as anyone to have this matter resolved. So far none of the options that we have proposed have found favour because they (the AFC) are rather adamant on the positions by Ramjattan,” said Roopnaraine.
“We are hopeful that as the negotiations proceed that maybe we put the issue of the Speaker in parenthesis and proceed to activate other agreements within the menu of issues that we have identified and then return to the issue of the Speaker with some new approaches and some new insights,” he said.
Dr. Roopnaraine said that the meetings between the AFC and the APNU have to do with a 12 month programme, ideas for legislation, “items we want to identify for immediate attention like audits that we have in mind, we want to know what exactly is happening with the Broadcast Legislation, [we want to know what is happening with the spectrum, who are being allocated licences. I would say that we have been very preoccupied with a wide range of issues,” he said.
State boards
In addition, APNU made a statement regarding the appointment of persons to State boards. “APNU wishes to express its concern over recent statements from Government ministers on the reappointment of State boards, in particular statements regarding the boards of Guyana Geology and Mines Commission and the Guyana Sugar Corporation,” it said.
The party said that this issue provides “an early test of President Donald Ramotar’s publicly stated intention to embrace the principles of inclusion and broad consultation in managing the affairs of the nation.”
APNU pointed out that the PPP is a signatory, under the 1998 political dialogue with the main Opposition party the PNCR, to an agreement that sets out several guiding principles with regard to the appointment and composition of State boards, Commissions and Committees. One guiding principle is that these bodies should have tripartite representation, namely the Government, the body politic and civil society,” APNU said.
The party said that it expects the Government to desist from any unilateral action on this matter and to formally engage the Opposition parties and civil society in the reappointment of boards.
Broadcast legislation
APNU said that it intends to raise the issue of amendments to the Broadcast Legislation within the tripartite talks. It noted during the last elections, the extent of abuse of the State media by the PPP/C reached new levels of outrageousness. “APNU believes that urgent action must now be taken to realign the National Communications Network and the Guyana Chronicle to serve the interest of their rightful owners, the people of Guyana,” the APNU said.
The party said that it intends to table in Parliament amendments to the Broadcast Legislation, propose that Parliament uses its authority to review all new television and radio licences granted over the last several years and demand a financial audit of the NCN and Guyana Chronicle, including of income derived from political advertisements during the 2011 campaign season.
