A reminder of the General & Regional Elections 2020

Dear Editor,
Almost exactly two (2) years ago, in April 2023, the Commission of Inquiry into the General & Regional Elections of Guyana of 2nd March 2020 delivered its Report to President Irfaan Ali.
As we approach the time of another General & Regional Elections, it is imperative that we remind ourselves of the Findings of that Report. Let me remind our readers.
I quote extractions from the Summary of Findings of the Report:
“There was a conscious and deliberate – even brazen – effort to violate the provisions of section 84(1) of the Representation of the People Act (ROPA).
Senior Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) officials abandoned all need for neutrality and impartiality, and demonstrated a bias for a competing political party and, in the course of events over those days, showed an open connection with that party and, by their efforts, sought a desired result for that party.
Chief Elections Officer (CEO) Mr. Keith Lowenfield, Deputy Chief Elections Officer (DCEO) Ms. Roxanne Myers, and Returning Officer (RO) Mr. Clairmont Mingo were principally responsible for clear and deliberate attempts to frustrate, obstruct and subvert the ascertainment of votes in electoral district No. 4.
The DCEO knew, or ought to have known, that at the time of the RO’s declaration, the statutorily prescribed procedure and requirements of ascertainment and tabulation for electoral district No. 4 had not been completed, and that therefore the RO’s declaration was a clear violation of the law. But the DCEO merely looked on; she said nothing and did nothing.
From the totality of the evidence surrounding the RO’s declaration, there appears to be such collusion and collaboration between senior GECOM officials as to likely amount to a conspiracy to make what was undoubtedly a premature and unlawful declaration of falsified results which showed the A Partnership for National Unity & Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) party as the winner of electoral district No. 4. This was the ultimate goal of the CEO, the DCEO and the RO.
The conduct and actions of CEO Lowenfield in relation to the discharge of his statutory duties prescribed by sections 96 and 97 of the ROPA were a brazen attempt to prevent GECOM declaring the true results of the elections of 2nd March, 2020.
His conduct was – to borrow the words of former Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding, Head of the OAS Observer Mission to Guyana – “a transparent attempt to alter the results of an election”.
While all of this was taking place as a “brazen attempt” to put the APNU/AFC back in office, former President and the leader of the APNU/AFC Party, David Granger, and his cohorts sat in waiting.
They may well have been declared the government, had it not been for the persistent intervention of the Local Observers, those of the International Community and, ultimately, the intervention of the threat of sanctions from the Government of the United States of America, and, in all probability, from the major democratic governments of the world, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Europe and South American countries.
Where would Guyana be today should that have happened? We don’t have to look far. We would have been a pariah state as the Maduro regime of Venezuela finds itself today. A country ruled by a dictator through the force of arms, under sanctions by the USA, virtually unable to sell its vast oil wealth (much larger than ours), supported only by other dictatorship regimes external to our hemisphere; its people in poverty and fleeing their country by the thousands.
The former GECOM officials named in the Commission of Inquiry Report are still before our courts, largely due to the lethargy, deliberate or otherwise, of our justice system, and may well not be prosecuted before the coming Elections.
However, to the everlasting credit of the Chairman of GECOM, Justice (Ret’d) Claudette Singh, supported by the representatives of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) on the Commission who voted with her, none of them remain in GECOM.
In contrast and to their everlasting discredit, indeed, their shame, those who were active leaders of APNU/AFC and in positions of authority of that coalition party’s attempt to rig the 2020 Elections remain in place and refuse to either acknowledge or apologize; yet they unbelievably ask the electorate for their vote. We do not, for instance, hear the voices of David Granger or Aubrey Norton or Nigel Hughes.
Let us not forget who was in power for the fifteen (15) months between the no confidence motion in Parliament and the March 2020 Elections, and the five (5) months between the conduct of the voting and the final correct declaration of the results, and who now ask to be given electoral power again.

Yours sincerely,
Kit Nascimento