Opposition says will boycott National Assembly |24 May 2011

The SNP leader Wavel Ramkalawan – who is also the leader of the opposition – said this yesterday afternoon at a press conference he and the New Democratic Party leader Ralph Volcère hosted at Arpent Vert.

They also released a statement they jointly signed with Philippe Boullé rejecting the results of the May 19 to 21 presidential election.

The three were candidates and together won a total of 44.54% of total valid votes cast at the election, which James Michel of Parti Lepep won with 55.46% of the votes.

In their statement they claimed Parti Lepep agents bought votes from members of the electorate who supported the opposition, and that the party’s candidate used state resources in his campaign.

The three also said the electoral commissioner and the police were unable to stop the alleged violations of the electoral law even when they were informed about such violations, which Mr Ramkalawan said would be difficult to prove in court “because those who were bribed, for example, would be unwilling to admit it”.

He said his party was not guilty of bribery as it did not have money to give out.

Messrs Ramkalawan and Volcère said they agreed with Mr Boullé not to turn up for the announcement of the election results on Sunday “as we did not want to endorse the results”.

Mr Volcère said they were also behaving responsibly by not being there so as not to make statements which would have agitated their supporters.

Only 1.45% of the voters cast their ballots in his favour while 1.66% voted for Mr Boullé and 41.43 for Mr Ramkalawan.