Leader of the APNU/AFC Coalition David Granger says the party’s election petition is likely to be completed by this week and could be filed as early as Monday.
According to Granger, who was defeated after one term in office by People’s Progressive Party/Civic’s (PPP/C’s) Irfaan Ali at the March 2 polls, his party is now working on “making the best of the situation”.
“Our lawyers are working on it and we expect that will be filed very soon – maybe by Monday. We have to ensure that all our partners are on board…”
“The petition will be completed this weekend. The lawyers are meeting every day to hammer out the details of it,” Granger stated during an interview on the radio programme, Straight Up Live on Tuesday evening.
The former President went on to say that he expects the matter to be dealt with by the courts promptly – the same manner with which they dealt with the litigations that were filed over the past five months when the country was embroiled in a political and electoral impasse.
“Generally speaking, I would say that the response was [by the courts] was timely – sometimes not favourable, but it was timely. The tradition is that matters concerning the representation of the people should be heard expeditiously so I expect once the petition is filed it should be heard expeditiously and dealt with as appropriate.”
“We are working towards ensuring that the petition is filed on time and that it’s comprehensive in that it presents the complete scale of anomalies and abuses that we have been able to compile,” Granger added.
A National Recount, which was agreed to by Granger and the then Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo, showed that the PPP/C secured 233,336 votes while the APNU/AFC obtained 217,920 votes – a difference of some 15,416 votes.
Despite the certified results of the National Recount, the coalition still insists on alleged voter irregularities.
