One would do well to recall at this point that before Mr Mingo’s sleight of hand failed miserably, the voting process had been declared smooth by at least one team of international observers and free and fair by Chair of the Guyana Elections Commission (Gecom) Justice Claudette Singh as well as incumbent president David Granger.

The recount just completed was only grudgingly agreed to after the APNU+AFC hit a brick wall of pressure for full verification of the Region Four vote for a credible result from Guyanese at home and abroad as well as the Commonwealth, European Union, Organisation of American States, Carter Center and Caricom observer groups.

It was mere days after President Granger declared that the March 2 General and Regional Elections were free, fair and orderly that the APNU+AFC charged that it had discerned “clear and unmistakable patterns of irregularities, discrepancies and worse” while observing the recount process.

What this is, of course, aside from being an extremely poor attempt at discrediting the recount, is a slap in the face of all the people who worked on election day.

This statement by the APNU+AFC disparages its own party agents as well as the polling clerks, their supervisors, the returning officers, and other officials and the local and international observers.