Outspoken political and social activist, Christopher Ram, has blasted senior Coalition Member and Campaign Manager, Joseph Harmon, over comments he made in relation to the final recount results, which show that the Peoples Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/C) has convincingly won the March 2, General and Regional Elections.
According to the vote tabulation, the PPP/C secured 233,336 votes while Harmon’s APNU/AFC Coalition garnered 217,920 – a difference of 15,416 votes.
However, hours after the final ballot box was recounted on Sunday evening at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre (ACCC), Harmon, in an attempt to discredit the recount and its final tabulation, downplayed the win by the Opposition PPP/C and sought to convince coalition supporters that the final figures do not mean anything, saying; “Tabulation is not validation”.
However, Ram, during a Kaieteur Radio programme, on Monday, in a stinging rebuke said that the comment made by the top coalition official, is nothing more than “desperation”.
“To say that ‘tabulation is not validation’, really doesn’t mean anything, it’s good soundbite. I suspect Harmon and company continue to rely on an any floating bubble…thinking that this is going to save them,” Ram expressed.
Ram, an Attorney-at-law and Chartered Accountant, added that it is very unfortunate that leading coalition members are continuing to push the false narrative that the PPP/C has committed electoral malpractices when in fact, it was coalition members themselves who had attempted to commit electoral fraud during the Region Four tabulations.
“To hear Harmon and James Bond talk about ‘fraud’ is the greatest irony that possibly, has come out of these elections,” the outspoken activist said, adding; “there has been real fraud perpetrated by Mingo and others.”
The political activist opined that the fraud perpetrated by Region Four Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo, was not on his own volition.
Ram explained that in addition to illegally handing over 15,000 votes to the APNU/AFC Coalition, Mingo also subtracted 3639 votes, majority of which belonged to the PPP/C.
“Mingo did not do this alone. I think Mingo is being made the scapegoat and the sacrificial lamb…There are others who knew what Mingo had done and they kept quiet.”
Ram said Guyana has become the “laughing stock of the world” now that it has been well over three months and a credible winner of the March 2, polls is yet to be announced. He referenced two other CARICOM countries – St Kitts and Suriname – which have had national elections and within days, the results were known and the winner was announced.
The national recount, which started on May 6, concluded last Sunday with GECOM ascertaining the contents of each of the 2,339 ballot boxes.
The preliminary tabulated figures have so far placed the Opposition –PPP/C with a commanding lead over the incumbent APNU/AFC coalition.
The PPP/C is projected to take 33 of the 65 seats in Legislative Assembly, while APNU/AFC will take 31 seats.
The remaining one seat is expected to be held by the Joinder Alliance comprising the Liberty and Justice Party (LJP), A New and United Guyana (ANUG) and The New Movement (TNM).
