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polling place so that in the event there was a court challenge, they would have been
able to point to the irregularities that were reported by their agents, observers or
representatives from each center; that the communications from the polling places
would not just be by calls but also, and primarily by text messages which would
note the phones from the messages were being sent, would indicate the polling
station involved, and which could be forwarded to the NEC and reduced into writing
that would form part of the evidence to demonstrate the widespread nature of the
violations or irregularities or fraud. It is that kind of evidence that would be viewed
persuasively by the Court. It is insufficient that they would cite only a few incidents
and call upon the Court to speculate that those incidents occurred at every voting
center, without the production of the necessary evidence or statistics that such
incidents did occur at those other centers for which evidence were not presented.
We note that in argument they alluded to other political parties and
independent observers holding similar views as the appellants. We take note that
the public records do show that several other political parties expressed
“solidarity” with the claims of the Liberty Party and the actions being taken by that
Party. We are disappointed however that they believed that those parties would
believe that this would be sufficient in law to meet the burden of proof which the
Liberty Party was required to meet under the law. The only Party sufficiently brave
and believing convincingly in the cause advocated by the Liberty Party was the
Unity Party, which filed a motion to intervene, and having been allowed to
intervene, presented additional evidence and claims in regards to acts and actions
of the NEC. Had the other political parties, by merely sitting on the fence and
expressing “solidarity” with the Liberty Party, they could also have presented
additional evidence which would probably have further buttressed the evidence of
the Liberty Party and the Unity Party as may have enable the evidence to reach the
threshold under the law to sustain the prayer that the October 10, 2017 elections
be cancelled and that a rerun, as opposed to a run-off election, should be held. But
that evidence was not sufficiently present, in the mind of the Court, to warrant
granting the prayer of the appellants for a rerun.
Indeed, at the hearing before this Court, one of counsel for the second
appellants was asked as to whether they had representatives or agents at each of
the polling centers to ensure the protection of the interest of the party and its