PPP/C still to decide on parliamentary representatives – Ramotar

Donald RamotarGeorgetown: Names of representatives of the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/) who will now occupy the Opposition benches in the National Assembly are still to be settled, according to the party’s leader, Mr. Donald Ramotar.

“That we will have to decide later on; I haven’t decided on that,” he said yesterday when asked by members of the media.

Mr. Ramotar, along with scores of PPP/C supporters marched to protest the 2015 election results, which have been dubbed fraudulent, outside the Guyana Elections Commission’s (GCEOM) Kingston office.

The coalesced A Partnership for National Unity and the Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) scored a close victory in the 2015 General and Regional Elections with 207,200 votes, while the PPP/C secured the support of 202,694 Guyanese who cast their votes in its favour.

The results secured 33 seats for APNU+AFC, one more that the 32 seats won by the PPP/C.

According to Mr. Ramotar, the PPP/C will support every effort to ensure that the business of the Guyanese people continues, even as it protests the 2015 elections results; results the party claims were delivered by way of rigged elections.

In a prior comment, he said, “We believe that these elections were seriously flawed, enough to change the outcome of the results. We believe that the data used by GECOM when they announced the number in their possession were numbers that did not reflect the vote in the boxes.”

Mr. Ramotar added, “I am talking about the integrity of our elections….we were asked about proof…they were saying that they did not have reasonable enough proof, but this cannot be regarded as unreasonable.”

The party had called for a recount of votes before the final declaration was made, but this was not granted. A second request for a country-wide recount was also rejected. The PPP/C leader then appealed for a recount of 22 ballot boxes where discrepancies were noticed, however, this was not done.

Concerns cited by Mr. Ramotar included: the discovery of falsified Statements of Polls (SoPs); the refusal of GECOM to have public vetting of polling-day staffers, many of whom were discovered to be activists of the political Opposition; misdirection by some GECOM staffers who “advised” voters; damaged stamps that saw some ballots not being properly stamped; the fact that persons without identification cards were allowed to vote, even though their images did not match those in the files of GECOM staff, and the denial of proxy holders use of their proxies, among others.