Apologise for trying to steal the elections – Jagdeo tells Hughes

Vice President and PPP/C General Secretary Bharrat Jagdeo at a recent press conference on Thursday responded to AFC leader Nigel Hughes’ question about what his party should apologise for. Jagdeo asserted there were “hundreds of things” the AFC should apologise for, with election rigging at the top of the list.

Jagdeo pointed out the active role the AFC and its surrogates played, in trying to rig the 2020 election, including a list of dead people the AFC claimed voted during the election. This list has already been disproved, with Jagdeo recalling that some of these persons were found to be alive and well, including by this publication.

“Nigel Hughes has refused to apologise for the AFC’s role in trying to rig the last elections.”

“He couldn’t find a single thing to apologise for. He wanted specifics on what he should apologise. We can find 100 things for the AFC to apologise for. But the key issues, their role in trying to steal the election and trying to thwart the will of the people.”

“If he doesn’t see that, as egregiously wrong. If he doesn’t see stealing elections as something reprehensible. If he doesn’t see this as unconstitutional or behavior to condemn. Then he is not fit to lead a political party, because it’s a party based on deception and lies. And all his talk about decency in politics, it is just that. Talk,” Jagdeo said.

In a bold statement at the AFC weekly press conference on Friday last, Hughes had declared that the AFC stands firmly by its actions during the tumultuous aftermath of Guyana’s 2020 elections, and has nothing to apologise for.

During the 2020 elections the AFC was a member of the APNU/AFC then coalition Government, which faced massive accusations of undermining the electoral process. For five months following the March 2 elections, the APNU/AFC Coalition employed various delay tactics, including filing multiple court cases to stall the official declaration of results, which were ultimately confirmed through a CARICOM-led national recount.

Then there is the matter of the referendum, with recent calls from the AFC for a referendum on whether the government should renegotiate the 2016 Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) with ExxonMobil. However, Jagdeo pointed out that AFC is the very same party, in the person of former Natural Resources Minister Raphael Trotman, who signed the 2016 agreement.

Jagdeo reiterated the PPP/C’s position that it is not in favor of a referendum for next year, making it clear that the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), which would hypothetically be tasked with carrying out the massive preparations a referendum necessitates, has to focus on preparing for the next General and Regional elections and be in a state of readiness by next year August.

According to the Vice President, AFC would love to have GECOM divert its attention from the upcoming election. Jagdeo noted, however, that the PPP/C would not be sucked into AFC’s trap, even as the smaller party scrambles for issues to latch onto to generate support.

“They have very little to offer people. They’re trying to find a couple issues to mobilise themselves around causes. One of the new causes. That’s why Patterson, the people who signed the 2016 contract, want referendum now. He and the WPA… they want referendum now. They want to obfuscate the key issues. They don’t want to talk about delivery of house lots to people, fulfilling their dream of owning their own home.”

“They don’t want to talk about lower mortgage rates. They don’t want to talk about assistance in building, core homes or young professional homes. They don’t want to talk about expansion of healthcare, 12 new hospitals. They don’t want to talk about the 12, 13 new water treatment plants and the inline iron removal plants that we’re building. or the 200 kilometers of transmission main. Or the investment in power.”

Jagdeo also blasted another senior figure in the AFC, former leader Khemraj Ramjattan, who had recently made an outlandish claim that during the 2020 General and Regional elections, Jagdeo had been spotted talking in Russian to the Russians who the smaller party had claimed were in Guyana to rig the election.

Jagdeo debunked such claims and questioned whether a case could be made against Ramjattan, who was the then Public Security Minister, for malfeasance in public office, after his public admission that these ‘Russians’ were deported for the alleged crime of engaging in a conversation with a public official.

“First of all, I never spoke with anyone in Russian or with Russians in Russian at the Marriott… and secondly, assuming there was a conspiracy to do this, would I be doing it in the lobby of a hotel?” Jagdeo questioned.

Additionally, Jagdeo pointed out that Guyana’s elections are paper based, unlike other countries that use electronic voting which make them susceptible to hacking. “They deported four, maybe unsuspecting persons. They just picked them up and sent them off, that may be malfeasance in public office. How can you be so silly?”