Justice Singh executed her job in accordance with the Constitution and laws

Dear Editor,
The APNU/AFC has been refusing to concede electoral defeat at the March 2 polls.
The Recount exercise shows clearly that the Peoples Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) won the elections with 233,336 votes, but the David Granger-led coalition has been mounting legal challenge after legal challenge in a bid to prevent the Elections Commission from making a declaration based on the Recount figures.
This is despite mounting pressure from the international community, which has made it clear that the only democratic solution to Guyana’s electoral impasse is for the winner to be declared based on the Recount results.
Those who feel the Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Justice Claudette Singh, acted recklessly while doing her job must be narrow-minded and twisted to file private criminal charges against her. Every decision Justice Claudette Singh has made was in accordance with the Constitution and Laws of Guyana. She is a woman of high standards, moral integrity and honesty, and has demonstrated loyalty to her office. She has made enormous personal sacrifice for Guyana and the Guyanese people, and has remained accountable to ‘the process’.
Justice Singh has occupied perhaps the most difficult, challenging and controversial job in Guyana. Before even familiarising herself with the basic elements and parameters of her office, Justice Singh had to decide whether to support having the electoral list being extracted from the existing database and be subjected to claims and objections, or whether a new electoral list had to be compiled from house-to-house registration. In an equally divided GECOM, her vote was decisive.
Her first key decision was to utilise the existing database and allow the General and Regional Elections to be held within the constitutional deadline. She was brave enough to stop the “house-to-house registration” and remove a cascade of controversies and true gridlock which would have arisen, as the constitutional deadline would have been violated. She allowed the elections to be held on March 02, 2020 in a process that was free, fair and transparent.
All the Opposition political parties must support Justice Singh, even if her positions do not accord with theirs.
At the same time, while Justice Singh needs to be cognisant of the concerns of members of GECOM, she should not allow those concerns to distract her from the hard decisions and choices that she will have to make.
We all know that Justice Singh is the Police Legal Adviser. She has wide experience as an officer in the Attorney General’s Chambers and as a Judge of the High Court and of the Court of Appeal. She is widely respected, and her appointment had attracted broad support at home and internationally. Her vast experience as a judge covers several decades, making difficult decisions based on evidence after considering all the arguments. That experience has provided a favourable background in enabling her not only to be strong, bold and courageous, but to have foremost in her mind the interests of Guyana, the will of the Guyanese people, and the Constitution of Guyana.
Once the Appeal Court makes its ruling today (Thursday, July 30) and throw out the case as she pleaded for and demonstrated through her lawyer, Justice Singh will to do the right thing and declare Dr Irfaan Ali as the next President of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana.

Sincerely,
David Adams