Witness asked to produce statements of poll
Returning Officer of Region Three (West Demerara/Essequibo Islands) during the 1997 general elections, Gurdat Persaud, yesterday said that he did not verify the signatures of the 247 presiding officers on the statements of poll before submitting them to the Elections Commission. Under cross-examination by National Independent Party Leader and Attorney-at-law Saphier Hussein in the Esther Perreira elections petition before Justice Claudette Singh, the witness said that he did not look at the signatures on statements of poll before submitting them to the command centre. He conceded that he was not acquainted with the signatures and therefore could not say if they were genuine. However, he depended on the information contained in statements of poll to compile his report. The information was supplied by his deputies who had supplied him with two copies of each statement of poll. According to him, one copy was sent to the command centre while he kept the other. Hussein requested that the witness produce all 247 copies in court. The witness agreed with the attorney that there was a requirement for the representatives of the political parties to have endorsed the statements of poll. He also agreed that in some cases statements of poll were not endorsed by the representatives and therefore were not in compliance with the requirement. On the issue of transmission of the results to the Election Commission, Persaud said that all 247 statements of poll were submitted to the Chief Election Officer (CEO) on December 16, 1997. However, he admitted that he did not deliver them personally but had sent his clerk and one of his deputies to deliver them by hand. Questioned on computer friendly forms, the witness replied that these were strange to him as he had never heard of them before. Asked about tally sheets, he said he knew about these, but was unable to say what had happened to them since he was given no direction to submit them. When the hearing resumes on Monday, Hussein is expected to continue his cross-examination of the witness. The petition challenges the validity of the 1997 general elections results and has named representatives of lists of the political parties which contested the elections and the CEO as respondents.
|