GECOM’s recount process must be viewed with cautious optimism

Dear Editor,
Barring some early delays, the GECOM’s National Recount of the votes cast at the March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections finally got on the way as had been scheduled for the 6th May, 2020 at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre. After two months of wavering, although progressing at a snail’s pace, the recount process is a most welcomed development.
All Guyanese and the world over view this process going forward as the only hope to bring finality to the long-awaited declaration of the winner for the recently concluded elections. A process that will bring closure to the excruciating uncertainties that has gripped the Nation since the two fraudulent declarations made by RO Clairmont Mingo. Everyone one wants to move on with their lives and rightly so, all Guyanese will be winners.
The slow pace of the recount is as a result of the unnecessary orders inserted in the gazette which demands greater alertness and close scrutiny by all agents outside of the Caretaker Government. Those orders give rise to a number of questions and reservations that have already been deliberated upon by a multitude of commentators already in the public domain. The process as publicized fits more into the sphere of the GECOM auditing itself. They are very much identical to the demands as was articulated by Commissioner Vincent Alexander.
Any rational person would conclude that consistent with previous positions supported, once again the GECOM Chairperson’s choice of orders for the recount are premised on Alexander’s call and confirms the popular view of the election body’s partisanship workings and being lined closely with the wishes of the PNC, APNU/AFC rigging cabal. Caretaker President Granger’s address to Nation expressly timed with the GECOM’s gazetted recount orders was not by coincidence. It exposes the correlation between the two agencies. Further; by that action the GECOM’s independence so highly spoken of by Granger himself was found to be highly wanting and complicit.
Granger and the Leader of the Opposition Bharrat Jagdeo had agreed for a recount of the votes cast at the last General and Regional Elections but in reality, the GECOM’s gazetted recount orders are designed to give Alexander and his associates open opportunities for obfuscation and mischief making. A GECOM decision on the 3rd day of April, 2020 particularly speaks to a recount of ballots cast, not in the least reconciliation.
Gazetted order number 6- Upon arrival of the ballot box at the workstation, it shall first be examined to ascertain that the seals are intact. The contents shall then be emptied, and the election materials examined. Notes shall be taken, and records made in accordance with the requirements of the Ballot Box Checklist. Any observation not catered for in the checklist provided shall be recorded on the Observation Report Form.
Those prerequisites exposes the process to unwarranted abuse and undue delays. The APNU/AFC Agents wasted no time in latching on to those preconditions and continues to take full advantage causing long delays and deliberate stymieing of the process. Reconciliation is absolutely unnecessary and is more of time wasting, for it cannot add to or does not subtract from the votes cast.
While twenty-five days are set aside for the recount, given the measured progress in first few days, a review of the process schedule by the Commission in the first week and of course cognizant of the modus operandi of Madam Chairperson there is every possibility for an increase in excess of sixty days or maybe close to one hundred days more.
The completion date certainly looks very open-ended at this point in time and is shrouded in numerous uncertainties and unanswerable questions. What is the intended use of the observation report in the tabulation process? What if Lowenfield refuses the use SoRs and the tabulation process as a basis for the final declaration? Given the three a side Commission, the final declaration will be juggled between Lowenfield and Madam Chairperson.
Lowenfield is the same GECOM CEO that aided and abetted RO Mingo in his two false declarations for District # 4 and even went to Court to defend him. Bear in mind that the GECOM Chairperson refused to nullify those declarations. Do not be surprised if Lowenfield continues his never-ending drama. He should have been made to remove himself completely from the entire process of the recount, he is a huge potential for wrong doings and lacks impartiality.
After claiming to have won the elections and more recently Granger’s address to the Nation in his own words reiterated the said claim and attested to a free, fair and transparent process at the last elections. With the recount in progress the APNU/AFC have now somersaulted to using the reconciliation aspect as a basis to discredit the very elections they claimed to have won.
They never wanted the recount in the first place and on realizing that the it was eminent they had a huge meeting at Congress Place. Out of that meeting a decision was adopted to resort to desperate and extreme measures. Within the recount process and publicly all their agents and operatives have been working assiduously to undermine the process of the recount and heap scorn on the 2nd March, 2020 elections.
Their intentions are abundantly clear; their agents have been instructed to continuously make objections and seek unnecessary clarifications disrupting the process and incurring lengthy delays at the work stations. It has now become very evident that the APNU/AFC Agents enter the recount work stations with preconceived obstructive schemes to delay and drag out the process as long as possible. To that end they have been achieving their objective and continue to act with impunity.
The underlying objective is to pile on as much vile accusation of fraud and make a call for fresh elections. The rigors are using social platforms and the electronic media to spread blatant lies in tandem with their agents’ disruptions in the recount process. They relentlessly poison and create doubts in the minds of their unsuspecting all-weather supporters. They have no interest in the recount because it will certainly prove they have lost the elections by a great margin and are fully aware of that fact.
The Guyanese people deserves much better. This long drawn out process is hurting very much and only suits the rigging cabal allowing them to illegally remain in power and having extended time to plot and plan more destructive schemes. GECOM’s recount process must be viewed with cautious optimism.
It is incumbent upon the opposition parties to unite and see the recount of the votes cast at the General and Regional Elections March 2, 2020 to its finality and to collectively act to remove the tyrannical rigging cabal from Guyana’s political landscape. The eyes of the world are on this recount. The ABC and EU countries, Commonwealth, OAS are all determined to seeing that democracy prevail in Guyana and are depending heavily on CARICOM to make the recount achieve that objective. All Guyana must be thankful for the role they are playing and applaud their efforts.

Respectfully,
Parasram Persaud