Dear Editor,
Never again in Guyana must the future of so many be placed in the corrupt hands of so few. The shameless subterfuge of those at the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) and its Secretariat, cannot re-establish the lost confidence and stained credentials caused by its leading tarnished and cheating staff members. It justifies the widespread local and international condemnation facing GECOM and the David Granger-led conspirators.
The organisation failed to activate Standard Operational Procedures for ‘recounts’ and the pretence over a myriad of Commission time-wasting meetings presided over by Chairwoman, Retired Justice Claudette Singh failed to establish acceptable transparent procedures. The situation highlights a heightened loss of confidence in not only the Chairwoman but the organisation as a whole. The gravity of the situation facing our dear country has been made clearer by the position outlined in her recent despicable decisions.
It has been over seven weeks since the March 2, 2020, General and Regional Elections, in which evidence of some of the most disgusting, disturbing, and fraudulent practices by GECOM staff was actioned and observed. It necessitated interventions through the High and Appeal Courts, where the overwhelming illegalities were recognised. As a consequence, the courts made and upheld pellucid rulings regarding the instructed methodology for the recount of the Region Four votes, but these seem to have since been frivolously disregarded. The current status quo is now surprising because the Judiciary would not have instructively ruled on the challengeable matters had the Judges found these cases lacking the flagrant fraudulent abuse by GECOM Returning Officer of Region Four, Clairmont Mingo.
Forced to state her position on key issues brought through PPP/C Commissioners’ petitions at the Commission’s last meeting allowed the unmasking of indecent pretence.
This nation is being held at ‘ransom’ as the PNC-APNU/AFC after two months, has maintained their kleptomaniacal and time-delaying antics to stay in Government with the aid of purposeful cheaters at GECOM. The blatant attempt to call votes from a ‘rigged’ spreadsheet, occurred after half the votes in Region Four was properly tabulated, and all the other nine regions’ votes were similarly tabulated and delivered to the Chief Elections Officer.
The Chief Elections Officer (CEO) Mr Keith Lowenfield has possession of all the Statements of Poll for each electoral region. I was present at the GECOM Office situated in Ashmins building at High and Hadfield Streets when Deputy RO, Miss Bobb abandoned the legitimate SoP verification approach and started calling the results from a ‘rigged’ spreadsheet prepared or provided by someone at GECOM.
The differences in votes on the spreadsheet were indeed a revelation since the votes called were all for the APNU/AFC and falsified to the extent that the votes reflected as cast by GECOM, were sometimes more than the total votes on the voters’ list for the specific division. All of these cheating and rigging attempts of the results took place in the presence of the international and local observers. It was so blatant that all the political parties objected and demanded that the RO return to the original method and requested that the votes be called from the Statements of Poll.
Even the CEO, Mr Lowenfield, came and attempted to call from the ‘rigged’ spreadsheet and when he saw the blatant difference in the numbers, he instructed that the RO call from the SoPs. After a smooth run of the process, the tabulations were abruptly stopped for no acceptable reason. Then came the chief Mingo ‘rigger’ who feigned sickness the day before and he proceeded to announce the unverified and rigged results of Region Four, following the falsified spreadsheet.
The emergence of the numerous problems including the abandonment of the process of verification by so-called tiring staff with no replacements followed a 2015 pattern in which key senior GECOM administrative staff suddenly became unreachable. Concurrently, it is now public knowledge that the PNC riggers were at Congress Place planning court cases after court cases to delay the process of a proper count of the Region Four votes.
With the recent turn of events, the apparent locking up of Chairwoman Claudette Singh in a room in the building for hours under Police guard must now be looked at with equal suspicion. Of note, the Chairwoman has decided among the many disappointing positions that:
* The current status of declaration stands until they are replaced. Does this mean that she is accepting the fraudulent Mingo tabulation although the courts and every observer have discredited it?
* There would be no live-streaming of the process. (There goes transparency)
* The recount period would take 25 days with the ten teams working 10 hrs per day. This is under conditions of sanitisation of the ballot boxes and their contents, but by whom? One would hope that the latter aspects would be witnessed by all parties present and that this sanitisation is not done solely in the presence of Volda’s men and women.
* She does not have enough evidence to remove some compromised staff from the process. At least the courts have evidence of their affidavits which are available.
* Opposition Commissioners are not entitled to see the copies of the CEO’s Statements of Poll when these ought to be public documents.
The list goes on and too many questions have emerged without rational or acceptable positions. It merely outlines that one having a capacity to understand laws as in the case of a retired Judge does not mean that such a person commits to abides absolutely. What is indicative is also their capacity to take advantage of legal shortcomings when the real intent is clandestine. There is no urgency by the Chairwoman and the mechanism for transparency has been fractionalised, making recognition more problematic. We must down with all of this trickery.
Sincerely,
Neil Kumar
