The accusation by two senior members of the AFC that Russians hacked the March 2 elections in an effort to tamper with the results is laughable and ludicrous. The two officials in question are qualified professionals and held high offices in the coalition government. By that, one would assume they possess a profound sense of reasoning and rationality. In reality, assumptions are just what it is.
Surely, they must have known that the voting and tabulation process in Guyana’s elections is manual; voters’ choice is indicated through the use of a pencil and the count is by hand. How could that have been hacked? More so, how could they even contemplate such a ridiculous theory? The answer lies in their desperation to fathom any excuse to try and extend the APNU/AFC’s illegal hold on power.
What is even more bizarre is that one of the two officials is the assigned Minister of Public Security and from his actions, he seems more obsessed with holding high office at the expense of combating the ongoing and escalating crime situation.
Again, by assumption, the expectation is that if someone commits an unlawful act as serious as tampering with national elections and is caught, he/she would be made to face the full force of the law regardless whether a local or a foreigner. Why then were they reportedly escorted and made to leave the country?
With foreigners being placed before the courts for illegal entry, overstaying or drug trafficking, having caught the Russians, charging and them placed before the courts, should have been routine. In addition, their arrest would have been a fillip to law enforcement. However, their inexplicable absence from the courts or any visual evidence of them being taken into custody and deported makes a compelling case that the accusation could be totally false.
With the Security Minister being a lawyer, he cannot be blind to that fact that evidence is vital. So far, no rational Guyanese, except for the two officials and probably their colleagues in the coalition, have bought that balderdash of Russians tampering with voters’ pencils and the manual counting of the ballots.
The other official is the assigned Communications Minister. Again, by rational thinking, someone in that position is expected to communicate accurate and verifiable information more especially during this very sensitive period. It is therefore extremely difficult not to conclude that the two deliberately set out to mislead the nation for a particular purpose.
Given the circumstances where the verification and tabulation process for Region Four Statements of Poll (SOP) was halted after less than 50 per cent were completed, and the promise by the Chief Elections Officer (CEO) to resume before a declaration was made, a link to the Russian accusation is difficult to discount.
SOPs from both the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) and Opposition parties corresponded up to the point when the verification was abruptly ended. With APNU/AFC in possession of their copies of the SOPs, they knew the results of the elections and with Region Four SOPs made public, it showed that, overall, they lost the elections.
Having proved their unwillingness to remain unmoved after repeatedly violating the Constitution since May 2015, the APNU/AFC coalition remains steadfast in holding on to office even in the face of international condemnation. As it is, GECOM’s CEO, in the presence of international and local observers, broke his promise to the nation for the constitutional verification and tabulation process to resume and continue until all the SOPs for Region Four are verified. That can only be described as wantonly dishonest.
What remains mindboggling is that a simple process has been deliberately subverted by some operatives from the GECOM Secretariat who reportedly are in collusion with APNU/AFC. The action of the Returning Officer (RO) to make a declaration without completing the verification and tabulation caused additional delay in declaring results that reflect the true will of the Guyanese people.
With reportedly false accusations of interference by Russians, the CEO blatantly reneging on his commitment to the verification and tabulation process, the RO’s declaration without the process being completed and the office cleared leaving the SOPs out of the sight of Party Agents and observers, point to suspected deliberate collusion to deny Guyanese their choice of government.
President David Granger led the coalition campaign’s thrust. He must know why the alleged Russians were not charged but given a free passage home. He must know what the Constitution says about the verification and tabulation process. Of course, that’s rational thinking given the office he holds. Unfortunately, from what has unfolded, we are clearly not dealing with rational people within the APNU/AFC.
