By Fareeza Haniff

Donald Ramotar during his press conference on Thursday, May 14. [iNews’ Photo]

Ramotar, at a news conference held at Freedom House shortly after GECOM released the results, maintained that the PPP/C is the winner of the elections, opining that the polls were rigged. When questioned, he admitted that there was some amount of collusion between the Guyana Elections Commission and the APNU+AFC coalition in the alleged rigging of the elections; however no evidence was provided.

“We are convinced that these elections were rigged,” Ramotar told reporters.

He made reference to alleged fake Statements of Poll (SOPs) but could not say exactly how much fake SOPs the Party discovered, when asked by iNews. According to Ramotar, the PPP is in possession of “many evidence” of irregularities which he noted has since been submitted to the Guyana Elections Commission.

“We should have a total recount of the votes; it wouldn’t take a long time. We think that a total recount, even manually, would not take more than eight hours to recount the whole elections process. To give this elections credibility and integrity, we think that is essential to have a total recount of the votes,” Ramotar said.

He pointed out that following the initial recount was done in Region 8, the PPP/C emerged as the regional winner. Using this as one of his basis for a recount, Ramotar said, “We think that these are serious issues that deserves to be investigated and done before a final pronouncement on these elections are made.”

He further noted that the PPP/C does not want a “bogus government” in place, thus a total recount is necessary.

Meanwhile, despite the fact that all international observers have pronounced that the elections were free, fair and credible Ramotar made it known that he does not agree with their assessment.

The US, UK and Canada diplomats have all dismissed the PPP’s claim of irregularities at the elections.