The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) on Saturday called on the Chairperson of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), retired Justice Claudette Singh, to carry out her solemn duty and have a recount done in a transparent manner.
GECOM Chair: (retired) Justice Claudette Singh
Justice Singh has been coming under heavy pressure of recent, with mounting calls for her to ensure that the recount of the votes cast on March 2, 2020, be conducted.
In fact, the GHRA pointed out in a letter to the Editor that the GECOM Chair holds the
future of Guyana in her hands.
“It is no longer a question of what she wants to do but what she must do – now! The Hon Chief Justice (ag) has provided her with legal cover for completing the tabulation of votes of Region Four in a transparent manner. As the Chairperson of GECOM, she, however, does not require the cover of this legal imprimatur. It is her solemn duty… Madame Chairperson, the GHRA urges you to get on with it. You have the support of the vast majority of Guyanese at home and overseas who would like to continue saying: ‘I am Guyanese and proud of it’,” the Association said in the missive.
It went on to acknowledge that it has been silent in the midst of all the debates, interventions and controversies surrounding the debacle of the long-concluded voting on March 2.
However, the Human Rights Association posited that nearly four interminably long weeks have passed with no end in sight other than one which portends disaster for Guyana as a nation and, more importantly, quite unnecessary hardship for its people.
“All [Guyanese] were asked to do, and did, was exercise their constitutional right to vote for the party and leadership they wanted to entrust their livelihood over the next 5 years. And all they asked for was that their vote be counted in an open and transparent manner consistent with the laws of Guyana and the statutory rights of GECOM,” GHRA stated.
Instead, the Association noted, people got the pain, the shame and the embarrassment of being a Guyanese and the promise of a future – not one gilded by the impact of their newfound source of wealth, but one tarnished by the debilitating impact of international sanctions and a livelihood of unimaginable misery.
“And this is without the inescapable destructive impact, both at a personal and national level with which COVID-19 will certainly hit us. The GHRA is constrained to posit whether this unseemly hesitation to complete the voting tabulations for Region Four is worth such a price! Have we as a people become so politically blinded that we are prepared to endure such humiliation and sacrifice in the cause of ensuring political victory. Surely not!”
According to the Human Rights body, it has been silent not because it is in disagreement with those voices of reason that have sought to focus on the essential issue at hand.
Regrettably, it posited: “those voices and the views they have expressed have been drowned in the posturing of what is good for Guyana, in the endless regurgitation of the errors of the political leadership since Independence and in the many prescriptions – with respect to shared governance for example – for a better Guyana.”
In fact, the GHRA, while acknowledging the value of these commentaries made in the interest of a better understanding of Guyana today and of enhancing Guyana’s future, said it is of the view that they are misplaced in the present context.
“They serve to deflect our focus from what must be regarded as the only issue of immediate relevance: the tabulation of the votes cast in Region Four and the manner in which this is done! The GHRA feels emboldened to speak out now, to point to the irrelevance at this point in time in focusing on recriminations regarding Guyana’s political behaviour and on prescriptions for a better Guyana in the years ahead,” the Human Rights Association stated.
