President Donald Ramotar yesterday refused to concede that the PPP/C has lost the 2015 general elections and called for a total recount of all votes even as he accused the APNU+AFC alliance of colluding with Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) staff to rig the elections.
“I cannot concede that I lost this election,” he told reporters at a PPP/C press conference at Freedom House. Asked by Stabroek News if he would give up power should Gecom officially declare the APNU+AFC Coalition the winner of the elections as expected, Ramotar responded that “I haven’t closed any options.” He said that he will be consulting with his team and did not rule out a legal challenge and said that he would have to “ponder” the party’s next move.
Ramotar and the PPP were yesterday isolated on the recount call. The Private Sector Commission was among local groups calling for the results to be accepted.
Preliminary figures released by GECOM show that APNU+AFC has won the elections by 5,360 votes. With results from all polling stations in, the APNU+AFC alliance has received 206, 817 votes while the PPP/C received 201, 457 votes for the 2015 general elections.
“We are convinced that these elections were rigged,” a sweating Ramotar said at Freedom House, while adding that the party did not agree with the assessment of international observers that the elections were credible. “Let me say explicitly that we think we have won these elections, that we have the majority of votes in the elections,” Ramotar emphasised.
He called for a total recount of all the votes and said that Chief Election Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield had found problems with 490 polling results. “The fact that last night (Wednesday night) he did not declare for 490 boxes can tell me that probably 490 boxes of Statement of Polls … he found problems with,” Ramotar told reporters.
Earlier yesterday, during a GECOM press briefing, the CEO had stated that the commission put aside the boxes after the PPP/C had requested a number of recounts across the 10 administrative regions. However, those boxes were included in the GECOM figures released yesterday. Lowenfield also revealed that the commission was looking into 33 Statement of Polls which seemed to have irregularities.
“I don’t want to dab the whole GECOM with a singular brush, but also the very fact that the CEO is speaking about fictitious Statements of
Polls bring into question the integrity of some of the staff there,” Ramotar said. A few minutes prior to making this statement, Ramotar had lauded Gecom’s ability to deliver sound and credible election results, “I think they can. [I] do I think it is possible,” he said. He had stated that in terms of a recount, GECOM had the ballot boxes, “they have the boxes, they have the boxes well let’s open the boxes and count.”
A visibly tired Ramotar, who fumbled over his words stressed that “many of these things could not happen without the collusion of the some of the elections day staff. I am not blaming the whole elections day staff, but…some of them seems to have been colluding with some of the skulduggery that took place. It couldn’t have happened otherwise.”
“We are convinced that these elections were rigged. That is why it is very, very important for us to have a total recount of the ballots,” the president declared. He repeatedly stated that a total recount was the only way to preserve and “save the integrity of the elections.”
According to Ramotar, a total manual recount should not take longer than eight hours and to call for a recount was well within the party’s legal rights.
He brushed off the consensus by the western diplomats as well as observer missions that the elections were free and fair. “I think it would always be useful to have international observers. I do not agree with their assessment of these elections but that doesn’t mean that in the future I would reject international observers in our politics,” he said. Ramotar alleged that the coalition was able to draw wool over the eye of the various election observers and said that this was why the various international observers did not see the multiple irregularities that were brought up by the PPP/C.
UK High Commissioner Greg Quinn has called the election process “free, fair and credible”. His comments yesterday followed the US Embassy’s statement earlier in the day which said that the Embassy stood by its previous assessment that the elections were free and fair. The United States Embassy has called upon all political leaders to adhere to the Political Party Code of Conduct which specifically proscribes public criticism of GECOM or interference with its work.
The President’s responses to questions yesterday were short and lacked empirical details. He referenced emails that were sent to GECOM to express concerns on Election Day. Ramotar stated that another press conference would be held with the party’s GECOM commissioners to relay evidence.
In a later press conference, however, former President Bharrat Jagdeo presented seven Statement of Polls from ballot boxes 4646, 4644, 4656, 4701, 4703, 4707, 4723. He said that in the verification process, the discrepancies between GECOM’s SOPs and the PPP/C’s were discovered. According to the cross referencing of GECOM’s SOPs and the PPP/C’s there were discrepancies as high as 120 votes and as low as 20.
“We have to be really stupid to put fake Statement of Polls in GECOM that show APNU with a higher vote than us, we have to be really stupid,” Jagdeo said.
The former president was non-committal when questioned by reporters as it relates to the party’s next course of action including possibly contesting the election results in the courts. Instead, Jagdeo said that all avenues will be looked at to determine which course of action would be decided upon.
