The National Recount of votes cast on March 2, 2020, is, daily, exposing Region Four’s Returning Officer’s (RO) declarations as fraudulent and the opposition People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) is again calling on the Elections Commission to release its Statements of Polls (SoPs), since its credibility is now at stake.
The Region Four RO, Clairmont Mingo, is being accused of declaring results for the region that are now being proven as inflated in favour of the incumbent A Partnership For National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC).
Over the past few days, there have been several instances where the figures that were released by Mingo did not match the actual numbers of the official Statements of Poll (SoPs) and the Statements of Recount (SoRs). Some of the figures have been inflated by 100 in some instances in favour of the APNU/AFC and in some cases, the numbers for the PPP/C have been reduced.
In light of the this, Presidential Candidate of the PPP/C, Dr Irfaan Ali stated that it is time for the elections body to release its SoPs since the Statements of Recounts (SoRs) that are being generated from the recount have matched the SoPs published by the PPP/C.
“We have our SoPs,” Dr Ali reminded but indicated also that there are also audio recordings of the declarations used by Mingo at various boxes.”
“And then no one would have to point their fingers to any political party, saying ‘how did you get this number or this is your number…It is GECOM who are in possession of the SoPs; they’re in possession of Mingo’s declaration and they’re in possession of the SoRs so far.”
As such, Ali argued, “in the interest of the public, in the interest of transparency, we would love for GECOM to publish these three so that the public can have it and the media can have it,”
According to the PPP/C’s Presidential Candidate, an easy way to find out whether the declaration by Mingo is false is for GECOM to make the documents public so that the citizenry can compare and draw their own conclusions.
