A recount of the ballots cast in just 87 of the more than 400 ballot boxes that Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo unilaterally declared for the March 2 poll, has confirmed that there was an inflation of figures for the APNU/AFC Coalition, equivalent to the 2015 margin of victory declared.
This was exposed by Opposition People’s Progressive Party/Civic Executive, Anil Nandlall, who during a media engagement on Friday (May 22, 2020), told reporters “our latest analysis of Mingo’s fraud shows that in 87 boxes so far, Mingo fraudulently allocated to APNU/AFC a total of 4495 votes and reduced the PPP votes by 758.”
According to the PPP/C Executive, “You are appreciating now the magnitude of the fraud perpetrated and reminded that the “fraud” affected over 400 ballot and we are only at 87.”
Elucidating the point over the 400 contaminated boxes, he said the party has already managed to ascertain that over 4500 votes had been illegally given to APNU/AFC and reminded that the PPP “lost the last election by just about 4500 votes”.
The recount exercise for the region completed counting an additional 19 boxes of Friday’s 87 total, and according to Nandlall, this was among the regions where the recount process is being dragged out where the entire controversy was initiated.
He posited that in such a scenario, the nation awaits the results emanating from the counting stations responsible for Region Four and suggested this was deliberate.
Addressing coalition charges of fraud across the country and not just in Region Four, Nandlall was adamant, “every single being who have their faculties intact; including other members of the APNU team, they know that Mingo perpetrated a fraud, nobody in their right mind will continue to deny that and that is what the recount is about.”
He reminded that coalition supporters and executive members had been gunning for the election results to be declared using the figures that Mingo had presented and that this was halted at the intervention of the Caribbean Community (Caricom).
