A statement from the Carter Center that PPP/C agents failed to present their copies of the Statements of Poll (SoPs) from District Four polling stations they challenged is shocking, according to PPP executive member Anil Nandlall.
He disavowed any knowledge of party polling agents being asked to produce their copies of the SoPs for the results from 21 polling stations that the party was challenging.
He further said that the party still has those SoPs where they found irregularities in the numbers presented and is prepared to produce them if asked.
The Carter Center contention was contained in a detailed preliminary statement it issued on Thursday on its monitoring of the contentious May 11th general elections. The Center’s statement, observers say, detracts further from the PPP/C’s claims of irregularities in the SoPs and comes at a time when the party is preparing to lodge an election petition against the results.
Comparing of the copies of SoPs in the possession of Guyana Elections Commission (Gecom) and polling agents for the various parties is a method used to quickly dispel any concerns about irregularities in the tallies at voting stations. At the end of tabulation on polling day, each party polling agent gets a copy of the SoP, while the original remains with the Presiding Officer and this then becomes the official Gecom record.
The Carter Center, one of the key international observers in the just concluded general and regional elections, highlighted the failing on the part of the PPP/C’s agents during a crucial verification exercise at the headquarters of GECOM.
It said Center observers noted that on the morning of May 15th, when the returning officer for District Four reconvened the verification process for results of the 21 polling stations that had been challenged, the PPP/C agents did not produce the copies of their SoPs to compare with those of the returning officer. Therefore, without any evidence with which to settle the PPP/C’s queries about the 21 results, the returning officer declared the final results for District Four.
Speaking to Stabroek News yesterday Nandlall said that never was his party asked to lay over or produce copies of their SoPs. It is unclear how Nandlall could be certain about this unless he was in charge of party’s verification machinery for the District Four results.
“There was no request made by Gecom for those SoPs”, he stressed. The Center statement however noted that it was the Returning Officer for District Four who made the request. Nandlall added that he was present at a meeting three days after elections when the head of the party list Donald Ramotar handed over to Gecom some data which was in a spreadsheet format. He insisted that this data showed an “inconsistent pattern” of votes being moved from the PPP/C and added to that of the APNU+AFC coalition in multiples of ten.
According to Nandlall, Gecom Chairman Dr Steve Surujbally had agreed that the 21 boxes being contested would have been opened and the votes inside recounted. He said that the Chairman did not request that the party “supply him with SoPs for those boxes.” There is a dispute over this as Gecom had intended examining the SoPs as opposed to a recounting of the votes in the 21 boxes.
Nandlall added “now having granted the request to recount these 21 boxes we were led to believe he was satisfied with the data we produced. I am now shocked that it is being said (by the Carter Center) that we did not produce SoPs to substantiate our claim. We have them and we can produce them at any time”.
The former Attorney General, while noting that he does not know what the party can do at this point, stressed that Gecom accepted the data they had provided at that meeting.
“I don’t know what we can do at this stage. They never entertained us in our request. We asked for a count and they didn’t give us. The law allows this and does not give the Returning Officer any discretion to refuse such a request,” he said. The Representation of the People Act does give Returning Officers discretion in these matters.
Nandlall added, “If Gecom is emphatic that its results are accurate then it boggles the mind why there is this marked reluctance to make a full and frank disclosure of the information and data which it used to tabulate the results. It is as simple as that. Just disclose. Make a full and frank disclosure.”
The PPP/C has refused to accept that the APNU+AFC alliance has won this year’s elections nad has staged protests in various parts of the country. Ramotar and other senior members of the party have accused the coalition of rigging the elections, while challenging pronouncements from observer missions that the elections were free and fair. They have insisted that to clear the air, in addition to a total recount, they wanted copies of the results from polling stations as well as copies of the SoPs. To date, the Chief Election Officer Keith Lowenfield has not responded to several requests for same which were made in writing. Stabroek News was unable to make contact with Lowenfield.
In addition to the written requests made by Ramotar, the PPP/C-nominated Gecom commissioners have also asked but were unsuccessful.
Nandlall has told Stabroek News that in spite of not being able to gain possession of this information, the party felt that it can still put forth a strong election petition case. The petition is presently being prepared and it is expected to be filed soon.
He later expressed satisfaction that the Carter Center has called on Gecom to produce complete data as quickly as possible on results at the polling station level.
