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…urges patience, restates polls were fraudulent
President David Granger Wednesday afternoon urged his supporters to be patient and said that the despite the ruling by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) the matter has to still be determined by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) which has to make a declaration.
The CCJ Wednesday afternoon invalidated a report by the Chief Elections Officer that gave the coalition victory at the March 2, 2020 polls based on valid votes. The court also despite strenuous arguments said it had jurisdiction to hear an appeal by the PPP/C while setting aside an earlier ruling by the Court of Appeal which ordered that more votes cast means more valid votes cast. The CEO report had given the coalition victory by 33 seats to the PPP 31 and the joinder party one seat. The report by the CEO assessed all the 2,339 ballot boxes and separated those votes that have been deemed invalid based on the laws of Guyana and the gazetted order of the recount.
Meanwhile, speaking to supporters outside of State House, President David Granger said: “Our party, our partnership and our Coalition are committed to the rule of law. The CCJ has not allowed the position that our Court of Appeal has taken but it means that the matter will now have to go back to the Election Commission. So the matter is not closed, it now has to go back to the Election Commission. We all have to be patient,” President Granger said.
“We all went out on the 2nd of March, March passed, April passed, May passed, June passed and now we’re in July. It is the first time this has happened in the history of our country and it has happened because there are some bad elements out there who tried to manipulate the vote by having votes recorded for dead people (and) people who had migrated, more votes in a polling station than they had electors,” President Granger told supporters. He added: “We know all of the faults, our party, our partnership and our coalition have been bringing these complaints of abuses and irregularities to the attention of the public and also to the attention of the court. (The CCJ) has made no coercive orders that mean they have not given any instructions to what GECOM is empowered under the laws of Guyana to do. We will have to assess the situation in which we are in now. The matter will go back to the Election Commission but as far as we are concerned we have evidence that there has been massive fraud and irregularities and we will continue the fight to make sure that your votes are counted.”
For his part, Joseph Harmon, Campaign Co-Chairman, APNU+AFC said: “The end of this matter in the Caribbean Court of Justice, puts the matter back to GECOM for the final decisions to be made in the declaration and swearing in of our President. As we have said all along our Constitution made provision for the actions taken by the Chief Elections Officer. We expect that GECOM in its understanding of the court’s ruling will stand firmly with the Constitution which is our Supreme law.”
