Electoral Commissioner asks police to investigate anomalies

Electoral Commissioner has defended the “honor and integrity” of officials of his office, even if the results of the recount of the 2019 general election ballots for Constituency on February 1 were smeared by several “anomalies”.

The anomalies were 73 missing ballots, discovery of ballot paper from another constituency (Port-Louis-Ouest/GRNO) and ballot papers without the seal of the Electoral Commission

Quizzed by Radio Plus hosts Nawaz Noorbux, Jugdish Joypaul and Jean-Luc Emile, the Electoral Commissioner Irfan Raman argued that “there is a big difference between electoral fraud and human error.”

“Counting is done manually, so human error is not impossible,” he claimed.

Regarding the anomalies, Irfan Rahman defended that the electoral commissioner “cannot be in all the polling stations at the same time” and that it will be up to the police to carry out the investigation.

“We know that some ballot papers have been found, it is very serious… Police will need to investigate the matter thoroughly and identify the culprits. All this that is casting doubt on the process of the Electoral Commission.”

Regarding the two ballot papers without a seal, he claimed not to be aware of the discovery.

“A ballot paper cannot be counted without a seal. It is undoubtedly a lack of vigilance of a person who did not do his job well.”