Opposition parties APNU and the AFC yesterday said that Chief Election Officer Gocool Boodoo should no longer be in his position following stunning claims by an elections commissioner on how the ruling PPP/C was nearly handed a parliamentary majority in 2011 that it had not won.
In a letter in yesterday’s Stabroek New,s elections commissioner Vincent Alexander said that the near erroneous declaration in 2011 of a parliamentary majority for the PPP/C was not a mistake but a result of the changing of the formula by Boodoo.
“Every day, there is someone referring to Boodoo’s action, in his preparation of the results of the 2011 elections, as a mistake. There was no mistake. Mr Boodoo was singularly responsible for converting the vote count into seats. This was not his first exposure to the task. It was his third. There is only one formula for converting the votes into seats. How could it be a mistake if a factor in the formula is changed? There was no error of calculation. Sixty-five (65) replaced forty (40) in the formula. Let it be known that no calculations were presented to the Commission for scrutiny. Signed declarations were presented. There was nothing for the naked eye to discern. It was my academic knowledge of the system and my constant explanation of the system to students that equipped me to discern the false declaration (result). When challenged, Mr Boodoo responded that he was right and was presenting the correct results.
“It required a sustained exchange; reference to the legal provisions that provide for the formula; and my insistence that he had used an incorrect formula that caused Mr Boodoo to resort to the correct and only available formula to recalculate the allocation of seats. It should be noted that he had already used the same formulation to correctly calculate the allocation of seats for the ten constituencies (regions). This was the straw that broke the camel’s back since it had been a pattern of Mr Boodoo to treat the Commissioners with contempt with regard to the truth. Enough was enough and is enough. Let the truth be told and I challenge anyone to refute the story that I now tell. My decency and professional cloak influenced my public silence, which has been exploited to drown out the truth and perpetuate falsehood. Enough is enough. I am now cloaked in good governance and guided by openness and transparency. Let the truth be told. There was no mistake. There was no error”, Alexander stated.
Boodoo has not publicly commented on the 2011 events and GECOM had put the errenous calculation of the seats down to a mistake.
Stabroek News contacted GECOM Chairman Dr Steve Surujbally yesterday for a comment on what Alexander had said.
Surujbally said that while he endorses most of what Alexander spoke of in the letter, he had an issue with one item, the nature of which he would not disclose.
“At this point in time although there are certain specific elements [of Alexander’s letter] that I do endorse, there is at least one item that I have to debate with Alexander. I would not comment further at this time,” he said.
The opposition did not hold back.
At a press conference yesterday, AFC Chairman Nigel Hughes said Alexander’s revelations were of grave importance. Alexander had also pointed out in his letter that Boodoo was involved in a similar fiasco in the 2006 election which prevented the AFC from occupying a Region 10 seat.
Alexander lamented that the 2006 mistake had been drawn to Boodoo’s attention but not corrected.
“In 2006, the mistake was brought to Mr Boodoo and the Commissioners’ attention at a time when it could have been corrected ‒ ask the AFC. seek redress in court.’ A court which dismissed the just case on technical grounds. 2011 was an attempt to once again deprive the AFC of a seat. An attempt to beat up on the small party in deference to the PPP/C. Let the truth be told”, Alexander said.
Hughes said that it was a clear indication that Boodoo in 2006 manipulated the elections results and, knowing that the results were flawed before the declaration, went ahead to declare those flawed results. This cost the AFC a Region 10 seat although the overall number of seats would not have changed.
The AFC Chairman wanted to know how the CEO could have gone ahead and released the results knowing the information was incorrect.
Hughes said that in 2011 the Chief Election Officer did not share with the rest of the commission the basis on which he came to the conclusion of that year’s results.
Hughes also said that the time has come for a revisit of the Elections Commission and the ways things are done, particularly the procedure for the selection of the CEO. He said though, that any suggestion of Boodoo as the continuing CEO will not be allowed.
Speaking at a press conference yesterday, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), Member of Parliament Joseph Harmon said the decision to remove Boodoo or allow him to continue cannot be a political one.
“From the outset we have been very vocal on this matter. Mr. Boodoo is at an end. Mr. Boodoo is off the job. If he wants to be considered he must apply but we are saying Boodoo’s contract has ended and that should be the end of Boodoo,” Harmon said.
“In the end the Commissioners have to make that decision. It is not a political decision,” he said.
GECOM has been deliberating for several weeks whether to renew Boodoo’s contract and this sparked legal action by the CEO for the procedures set out in his contract governing renewal to be followed. Earlier this week the Chief Justice (ag) Ian Chang threw out the matter.
Meanwhile, Speaker of the National Assembly Raphael Trotman considered it a measure of vindication the revelation that the AFC had a legitimate claim to a seat in Region 10 as explicated in Alexander’s letter.
Trotman, a former member of the PNCR and founder member of the AFC said that the party had been assured in 2006 that their petition in the High Court would not have been challenged.
“At the time I was leader of the Alliance for Change and its Presidential Candidate. We were told in a meeting that they (GECOM) made a mistake and that we were entitled to a seat in Region 10. We were led to believe that when it got to the court GECOM will not take a position against us,” he said.
Trotman said he remembers vividly the words used in the affidavit of GECOM, which said that the AFC held a “pretended claim” to a seat in Region 10. “We were told human error was responsible for the miscalculation. We were told that if we filed a petition it would not be protested,” said Trotman.
When Stabroek News approached Presidential Advisor Gail Teixeira for a comment on Alexander’s letter, she referred the newspaper to the Chairman of GECOM and the PPP/C appointed Commissioners.
When Stabroek News contacted PPP/C-appointed elections commissioner Dr. Keshav ‘Bud’ Mangal for a comment yesterday, he declined.
An erroneous official declaration of a PPP/C majority in 2011 would have required an approach to the courts by the opposition and there would have been no guarantee of a reversal of the flawed pronouncement.
