Dear Editor,
Since October 2018 I had said in one of my letters to the press that the rigging of the 2020 elections by the PNC-dominated coalition is a reality and not the product or figment of an overactive imagination. This prognostication was based on the unilateral and unconstitutional appointment of the then GECOM Chairman but now numerous pieces of evidence have been brought to the fore since the successful passing of the No-Confidence Motion on December 21, 2018.
We have seen the acceptance of that NCM by both the President and the Prime Minister that the Government has fallen and GECOM held a meeting on December 22 to address the preparations for General and Regional Elections and on December 27, GECOM’s Public Relation’s Officer, Yolanda Ward, announced that Elections can be held within the 3-month timeframe stipulated by the Constitution.
However, the PNC knew that if that happens, they had no chance of continuing to be the Government since the reasons for the successful passing of the NCM were compelling indeed and the electorate will not be fooled again.
Therefore, Nigel Hughes initiated the train of events which eventually saw the violation of the Constitution, especially Articles 106 (6) and (7) and the delay of General Elections until now despite the Caribbean Court of Justice’s historic and unanimous ruling that the NCM was validly passed, the unilateral appointment of Patterson was unconstitutional and that the three-month election clock had started ticking since June 18, 2019. This meant that elections must be held by September 18, 2019, the latest.
The coalition, in the meantime, being cognisant of the fact that the CCJ would rule against them, used the ‘planted’ illegal GECOM Chairman, Patterson, to commit his intended illegality by ushering in the process of House-to-House Registration which will see General and Regional Elections going way past the three-month deadline and into 2020, closer to the elections due date.
This will give the coalition the time needed to not only to pad the electoral list but to get rid of thousands of Guyanese who, for various reasons, cannot be registered with the current House-to-House Registration. We have now seen that Moses Nagamoottoo has become extremely sympathetic to the Haitians’ cause since he knows the rigging modus operandi of the PNC – he had written and said volumes about this.
He knows also that since there is no overseas voting, it will now be better to bring the overseas voting home – register these Haitians and place them on the voters’ list and secure their votes. This is easily done since it is easy to get fraudulent birth certificates and even passports in this country and this becomes a lot easier when it is done under the directive of the Ministry of Citizenship and Government officials.
Mr Kit Nascimento’s letter to the press nicely sums up the burning questions which the coalition has failed to answer and even challenged the President to provide come clarity. But the President has chosen to be mum on the matter. So far we have seen that two Ministers have given diametrically opposing ‘evidence’ of the issue.
The Minister of Citizenship has claimed that Guyana is the “stepping stone” to greener pastures – Brazil, Suriname and the USA. Are all the Haitians accounted for in relation to this reason? If the Minister knows that to be so then he is condoning a criminal act. What has he done to stop this smuggling and human trafficking?
Then Minister Jordan blew the whistle when he admitted that Haitians are working for less money than Guyanese, thereby also admitting that these Haitians are willing to accept wages below the legal minimum. Since the Minister knows this to be true then he is also condoning an illegality as well. Furthermore, Minister Felix’s Ministry must be the one to have granted work permits to these Haitians so it boggles the mind to understand his “stepping stone” theory!
In conclusion, no amount of yarn spinning by Nagamootoo and his coalition ilk will cause Guyanese to turn a blind eye to the fact that the current illegal House-to-House Registration embodies a sinister motive to delay and rig the elections. However, I am sure that the Chairperson of GECOM will not tolerate this illegal exercise and she will uphold our supreme law as she had vowed!
Yours sincerely,
Haseef Yusuf
