Not only are the immigration records supplied by the Commissioner of Police to the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) being discredited as false, the electoral body cannot legally or morally use the information that was supplied.
This is according to Chairman of A New and United Guyana (ANUG), Timothy Jonas, who on Wednesday questioned the issue brewing over the 172 names supplied by the Commissioner of Police as being out of the country, since, according to him, the recount exercise currently shows the Opposition Peoples Progressive Party with a lead of 15,000 votes over the incumbent.
Speaking with reporters outside of the Arthur Chung Convention Centre (ACCC), the attorney-at-law recalled that GECOM Chairperson, retired Justice Claudette Singh, had in fact called on persons making allegations to prove them.
This he juxtaposed with APNU Aubrey Norton’s position that the coalition will make its allegations and that GECOM must prove the assertions.
Jonas was adamant that GECOM is not a court of law, and as such could not examine, cross-examine of take evidence from persons in regard to their immigration status on Elections Day.
According to the lawyer, the local courts of law have already determined that being outside of the country does not preclude a person from voting.
The ANUG chairman was adamant that the commission could not take extraneous information and try to incorporate it into its records.
Telling reporters that ANUG was taken aback by the Chairperson’s request — not surprised — Jonas was unyielding that the information supplied by Police Commission Leslie James count not be incorporated into GECOMs records at this stage.
Additionally, Jonas noted that as the information in the list supplied to the GECOM Chairperson became public knowledge, people started coming forward to debunk the claims in the information provided by the Police Commissioner.
He drew reference to prominent attorney-at-law Devindra Kissoon, who was registered as an observer and worked on Elections Day in addition to participating in several of the elections-related court cases that had been filed.
Jonas called the allegation on the part of the APNU/AFC counting agents hilarious, and pointed to the fact that the coalition agents would raise as many as 140 names for persons purportedly related to a particular ballot box.
He told media operatives that if six of those persons listed were found to have voted on that day, the APNU/AFC agent would object and commit to providing evidence at a later date.
This, he called a pattern in regard to the objections.
