URP member was blocked from en
Although they contested the March 2020 elections, executive member of the United Republican Party (URP), Rawle Aaron said he was prohibited from entering polling stations on elections day and was forced to view polling statements after they were placed outside following counting.
“I was debarred from visiting some polling stations by mostly APNU+AFC supporters who claimed once you are representing another political party, you would not be able to enter,” Aaron told the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the March 2020 elections.
In his sworn testimony, Aaron identified Sophia and Diamond as the two areas which URP representatives were unable to enter even though they had accreditation badges.
In one instance, he said he was even “debarred” by the police who said they were acting on instructions they received from employees of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM). “They (police) were saying we would not be able to enter…All they said is that we had no representatives there and that we would not be allowed to enter,” Aaron told Senior Counsel, Sophia Chote who is leading evidence in the inquiry.
Aaron explained to the CoI that as the General Secretary of the party, he was authorized by GECOM to visit all polling stations. “It was given in form of badge that identified you. We had different classes of badge. Some persons who were only authorized to visit some specific areas, some specific regions while others like myself, we were authorized to visit every district and every area in every region,” he said.
However, he said URP had an issue with accreditation badges since they were not issued with the required number for the regions which they contested. And, no reason was given for this.
Upon lodging the complaint, Aaron said he was told that the party representatives should return to the areas where they were not allowed and utilize their “regular” badges. “We were supposed to be given badges in categories that would permit us to enter certain areas and we did not receive enough of those badges that gave us unilateral rights and authority to enter those areas,” Aaron said.
Prior to this, Aaron told the CoI that when the party was supposed to submit their list on nomination day, they also experienced some setbacks.
He said because of the number of parties that contested the elections, a decision was taken to set up a shift system to ensure the URP was the first to submit their list. However, things didn’t go as
planned. “…We were barred from submitting our nominees and we were told that APNU+AFC would be submitting their list first,” Aaron told the CoI which is chaired by
retired Justice, Stanley John.
Because of this, Aaron said the URP only contested nine of the regional districts. “One was omitted because we did not had the resource to go back and to clarify those names that was omitted because they were submitted by other political parties,” he said.
After polls were closed, he said he visited polling station across the county but was only able to view poll results from outside. Some of the polling sheets were even removed after being placed outside polling stations by APNU+AFC supporters, he said.
No space
Aaron told the CoI about how the URP continued to experience difficulties even after polls were closed.
Around 8pm on March 2, 2020, he said he went to the Ashmins building where he proceeded to an “open space” that was designated for political parties which contested elections.
There was no space set aside for URP, Aaron said.
As such, he said he saw Chief Election Officer, Keith Lowenfield who assisted him in getting a designated space for his party so that they could participate in the tabulation process.
But before Lowenfield, Aaron said he approached Region Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo who said “you would have to use the designated space”.
The following morning around 2am, Aaron told the CoI, tabulation was bought to a halt by Mingo. “He said that we will stop