General Secretary of the Peoples Progressive Party (PPP), Bharrat Jagdeo, has fired back at the A Partnership National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Coalition over claims they made in relation to former Jamaica Prime Minister, Bruce Golding’s, damning assessment of the fraudulent declaration of the District Four results.
Golding had led the Organisation of American States’ Electoral Observation Mission (OAS-EOM) to monitor Guyana’s March 2 General and Regional Elections.
On Wednesday, the EOM head presented his preliminary report to the Permanent Council of the OAS during which he said he had “never seen a more transparent effort to alter the results of an election.”
This reportedly angered the Coalition; and in a desperate attempt to discredit the preliminary findings of the OAS Observer Mission, the APNU/AFC launched a tirade against the Caribbean statesman alleging that Golding’s “friendship” with Mr Jagdeo disqualifies him from making an independent and fair assessment of the conduct of Guyana’s polls.
However, Jagdeo, himself a former president, during a virtual media briefing today, lashed out at the Coalition for deliberately ignoring the reports of all the international observers which stated that the tabulation process for District Four lacked credibility and transparency.
“This has nothing to do with friendship. What Golding saw, the entire OAS Observer Mission saw; all seventeen of them; from 13 countries, the observers from the European Union, the Commonwealth; all saw the same thing,” Jagdeo noted.
“I have been president for a while, and I have worked with several Prime Ministers around the Caribbean; and I have a good relationship with almost all of them up to today; Bruce Golding and Owen Arthur and many of the others …these are decent people who will never stand for rigging; and they saw what took place.”
The General Secretary reminded that everyone that was present during the District Four tabulations had expressed the same views; and it is only the APNU/AFC who are standing in support of the fraudulent declarations by Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo.
“APNU/AFC are the only ones that were happy with Mingo’s declarations,” he said.
In relation to Golding’s credibility and track record, Jagdeo said: “Bruce Golding has more credibility, honest, decency than the entire APNU apparatus -all the Cabinet members put together.”
Taking a swipe at top APNU/AFC Candidate, Joseph Harmon, the former president noted that he (Harmon) is in no position to question the credibility of Golding, as he is among a “cabal” in the Coalition that is “defending blatant thievery” of the elections.
The former president noted that the APNU/AFC will never make their Statements of Polls (SOPs) available to the public to back up their claims that they have won the elections, because they are afraid that this will expose Mingo’s figures as fictitious.
