Three years later, APNU+AFC was clearly most incompetent, racist gov’t in history – VP – Guyana Chronicle

VICE PRESIDENT, Dr Bharrat Jagdeo is now more convinced than ever that the Guyanese should recognize the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) as the most incompetent, racist, and corrupt government in Guyana’s history.

The VP opened his press conference on Friday reflecting on the events of March 2020 – August 2020 which marked one of the most sordid times in Guyana’s democratic history. The VP said there were events which, when reflected on, clearly showed how the APNU+AFC tried to rig the 2020 general and regional elections.

He recalled that the former government attempted to digitize the records of the General Register Office (GRO), but it was later revealed that the intention was to add a number of persons, including some immigrants, to the GRO database which would see fraudulent birth certificates being issued so that persons could be fraudulently registered ahead of the upcoming election period.

Dr Jagdeo said there was also the unilateral installation of former Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), James Patterson which was later ruled by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as a breach of Guyana’s laws.

The Vice President noted further that there was an effort under the APNU+AFC to embark on an illegal house-to-house registration process, which the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), then in Opposition, moved to the court to challenge.

With that registration process, the VP continued, it was anticipated that substantial blocs of persons in areas which are largely supportive of the PPP/C would not be registered. Added to that, the claims and objections period would have been so short that the PPP/C would not have been able to pick up on all the issues, thus resulting in the disenfranchisement of voters.

VP Jagdeo further said that it was clear that the locating of the District Four Returning Officer’s office in the same building where the secretariat’s operations were housed was intended to impact the outcome of the vote tabulation in Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica), a matter which is currently before the courts.

Since the December 2018 passage of the No Confidence Motion (NCM) against the former David Granger administration, it became apparent that the PPP/C would have to reduce the effectiveness of the coalition’s rigging attempt.

One thing is clear, Dr Jagdeo continued, and it is that the APNU+AFC came into office in 2020 with good will after selling a story to Guyanese voters that they were competent, had a clear governance plan, was committed to the fight against corruption, and could bring economic development. These were all false, Dr Jagdeo said, adamantly.

He said that Guyanese can now say with certainty that the last government was the most incompetent and corrupt in the history of Guyana, and had done significant damage to the country’s social fabric in a short period, including through the removal of a large number of persons from the public sector who were condemned as favourable to the PPP/C.