The GECOM process for recount creates room for mischief by the dark forces

Dear Editor,
GECOM has lost the respect and trust of the Guyanese people. It is now viewed as the adversary of the will of the electorate, and an affront to democracy. After almost two months, Guyana and the world still await GECOM’s final declaration of the General and Regional Elections held since the 2nd March, 2020.
From all indications, voter turnout was quite high, and the process was fairly smooth. The counting at the polling stations was quite efficiently completed, with the results legally documented on the statements of poll (SoPs) and inserted at conspicuous places for public viewing the very night, as is required by law. All party agents were given copies of the said SoPs, more so the two major contesting parties, the PPP/C and the APNU/AFC, who were in a better position to collect with their machinery on the ground spread across Guyana.
It meant therefore that those two parties in particular, having collected all the SoPs, surely would have done the math. Those certified documents of the count, when collectively tallied from all the polling stations around the country, amounted to total votes cast and for each party separately, and by all means those in possession of all the SoPs clearly know the final results.
The PPP/C and the APNU/AFC knew the very night of March 2, 2020 who won the elections but, quite rightly so, had to await the GECOM to make that pronouncement.
For the APNU/AFC to claim otherwise is grossly misleading; and so far, the GECOM has played host to their game by refusing to publicize the very SoPs that they too have. The SoPs are public documents, the nation is the foremost stakeholder and has the supreme right to view them.
Come on, Madam Chairperson of the GECOM, you are a student of the Law; support the full publication of the Region #4 SoPs, still awaiting final declaration, without any further delays.
Barring Region #4, the Returning Officers’ declaration for the other nine Regions were certified and accepted nationally and internationally as being very transparent and a true reflection of the will of the people. There is absolutely no need to recount those, Region #4 is the bone of contention. The blatant attempts at rigging in clear view of the world, and the two fraudulent declarations made by the Region #4 RO Clairmont Mingo, at the Ashmin’s Building and at the GECOM Headquarters, have been widely exposed and outrightly rejected by the political parties, civil society, a wide cross-section of the Guyanese populace, and the international observers.
To date, it remains acceptable to GECOM and fully welcomed and staunchly defended by the APNU/AFC via their Commissioners, led by Mr. Vincent Alexander with full support of the GECOM Chair agreeing to all he proposes. A primary school student can draw the conclusions, there exists complicity between the contaminated actors in the GECOM and APNU/AFC.
The tainted Region #4 RO Mr. Clairmont Mingo had not acted alone, but with the full backing of the APNU/AFC and the compromised staff in the GECOM. That cold-hearted action by Mingo has brought this country down to its knees, with no clear path out of the mess at this time.
Having agreed to a recount, CARICOM had a high-level team flown into Guyana to provide oversight of the process at the behest of caretaker President Granger. The recount that was scheduled to commence at the Arthur Chung Convention Centre never got off the ground.
The delaying tactics employed by top GECOM officials, including Roxanne Myers, saw a raw display of abuse of authority, fumigating of the building by the Ministry of Public Health were all aimed at allowing Granger’s APNU/AFC candidate Ulita Moore time for her legal team to prepare for a successfully piloted injunction in the High Court, blocking the recount, only to be later overturned by the Full Court. Embarrassed, the CARICOM high-level team had no choice but to leave.
The response by Honorable Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados and Chairman of CARICOM, summed it up all, as she correctly stated that there are dark forces at work in Guyana that do not want the recount. The dark forces continue to act with impunity.
This nation has been suffering long and hard ever since the successful passing of the No Confidence Motion on the 18th November, 2018 against the Granger-led administration, and still with no end in sight. One cannot find a justifiable reason for the rejection by the learned retired Judge Claudette Singh for a transparent process as advanced by Commissioner Sase Gunraj’s ten motions.
The GECOM process for recount creates room for mischief by the dark forces. Live streaming would have been much to the credit of GECOM’s battered image. The proffered twenty-five days for the recount by the GECOM Chairperson indicate no start date, and the planned review of the process in the first week affords the opportunity to manoeuvre and for the dark forces to buy time to plan skullduggery.
It’s anyone’s guess Mr. Alexander might very well get his 156 days. Sinister plots are in the making, and like the Prime Minister of Trinidad suggested, this will not end good.
During the site visit to the Arthur Chung Convention Centre on the 15th April, 2020, Claudette Singh, when interviewed by media operatives, gave the assurance that the recount will be completed in time for the reconvening of the Parliament, April 30, 2020. She has, for the umpteenth time, trampled on her own words. That assurance has now suffered the same fate like so many others before, while Guyana remains in turmoil.
This letter writer supports the call of all the peace-loving Guyanese at home and in the diaspora for the recount of the Region #4 boxes only, live streaming for greater public scrutiny, remove the GECOM tainted operatives from the process. The GECOM Chairperson would be better advised to accept and implement the ten motions presented by the Opposition Commissioner, which would guarantee transparency, lend credibility, and guard against stealing of the election by the dark forces like what was attempted by Mingo for the APNU/AFC.
CARICOM and the international community must act now to have the GECOM Chair recognize the importance of the ten motions and their implementation, which will go a far way in helping Guyana to restore some pride and dignity. Twenty-five days are way too long. The GECOM Chairperson must ensure the cleansing of the process by removing the tainted staffers under her watch, take the high moral ground, and bring to finality the results of the March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections.

Respectfully,
Parasram Persaud