FLASHBACK: Persons voting at Eve Leary on November 28, 2011

The opposition coalition A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance For Change (AFC) are at odds over whether there should be a forensic audit into last November’s general and regional elections, in the wake of suggestions of irregularities by President Donald Ramotar.

APNU Chairman, David Granger said his coalition would possibly support a forensic probe only after the results of a verification of the Statements of Polls become available before month-end.

“We are open, we have nothing to hide, we are open to the audit but we want to bring the truth to light first because the present situation is that we were deliberately given scanned statements of poll which were at variance with the original statements of poll.”

Granger explained that APNU would examine its verification report. He observed that there has been a serious abuse of the electoral process by person or persons unknown in Regions Three and Four in particular where the Peoples Progressive Party “miraculously scored huge increases over what they got in 2006.”

But AFC Chairman, Khemraj Ramjattan bluntly rejected any suggestions of a detailed probe into the vote-count which would require a High Court order to do. “We are not going to support an audit - the result is what it is,” he told Demerara Waves Online News (www.demwaves.com)

Ramjattan, a former executive member of the governing Peoples Progressive Party Civic (PPPC), accused President Ramotar of engaging in rhetoric to distract Guyanese from steadily plummeting support at all elections since 199 while abusing state resources. “This is because the PPP cannot accept that there has been diminishing support since 1992 because people are seeing through their corruption, maladministration and land-grabbing,” he said.

The AFC Chairman flatly denied being involved in vote-rigging, saying that he had been one of the fighters in the PPP against such a practice.

At his post-Cabinet news briefing on Wednesday Cabinet Secretary Dr. Roger Luncheon recalled that in the very first post-election engagement between the three political parties Ramotar had offered a forensic audit.  However, he added, the Guyanese leader had no longer pushed the idea of an audit because "one would hardly in the spirit of consensus and a congenial atmosphere exercise presidential fiat in an ambience of collaboration."

Luncheon also noted that the PPP/C was the only party that had lodged formal objections in electoral districts Regions Three and Four but voluntarily withdrew them.

He added that Ramotar's position followed an examination of the vote count in which "mischief was afoot."

Asked why the PPP/C did not forge ahead with a forensic audit, he said "There wasn't consensus among the parties to move forward."