Dear Editor,
The David Granger coalition APNU/AFC continues to claim victory of the March polls, and has stood in support of Mingo’s controversial declarations. But in spite of repeated calls from various stakeholders to release its SoPs on which it is claiming to have won the elections, it has not budged. David Granger and his APNU/AFU cabals are playing a dangerous game, their stalling has eroded faith in our political institutions, our electoral process and it has tested the popular goodwill towards the people of Guyana. Having attempted to engineer the blatant unsuccessful rigging of our General and Regional Elections, they have now resorted to a new approach to slow down the District Four recount on their own terms, by having their agents regroup and continue to make ridiculous allegations of voter fraud in the recount. What kind of precedent is David Granger setting for our young people that will follow in the next generation? For these will all be in their history books.
The greatest task that an elected People’s Progressive Party/Civic Government has in the future will be to rebuild public trust in the electoral system by promoting and achieving a more transparent and inclusive form of politics and reforms.
What has transpired in Guyana since after the March 2, 2020 election has basically been a circus, with the APNU/AFC continuing to make allegations of dead people and migrated persons voting from within the PPP/C stronghold areas. This must imply that the polling agents from both the PPP/C, the APNU/AFC, the small parties and the GECOM E-Day staff came up with this great conspiracy scheme to commit voters fraud. The APNU/AFC is a confused bunch of politicians who are trying their best to cause confusion during these elections recount process. APNU/AFC caretaker Government, you have lost these elections, just “throw in the towel”. You have already taken this country down a treacherous path of political divide, you have undermined the rule of law. Who in their right mind will want to believe you and your APNU/AFC caretaker cabals?
The people of Guyana, the internal community and observers are all disappointed that the David Granger-led caretaker Government chose not to demonstrate a genuine commitment to transparency by ensuring that all duly accredited organisations, including The Carter Center, are allowed to conduct their work until the recount is completed. If David Granger is truthful to transparency and democracy, then he should have The Carter Center observers return and observe the crucial remainder of votes during District No Four’s recount process.
As the head of the APNU/AFC coalition, David Granger must be aware of the results from the SoPs and must know that his party has lost the elections by a resoundingly large margin between 15,000 to 17,000 votes. Just in 87 ballots boxes alone Clairmont Mingo fraudulently stole more than 4495 votes for the APNU/AFC which is more than their 4000 margin in 2015, as he reduced some 758 votes from the PPP/C. We must ensure that Caricom’s observer team remains in Guyana to the end of the recount. At the rate this recount is going, all the other Districts will complete their recounts long before District Four is completed. Guyanese and the competing parties share the same sentiments that GECOM and its staff will not be impartial in ensuring the District Four recount is completed in a free, fair, and transparent manner and most importantly GECOM as a body is being compromised and is significantly influenced by the current PNCR representatives. It is now obvious that there was a deliberate attempt to keep The Carter Center away from this recount since the caretaker Administration realised that The Carter Center is the one organisation that will stand up for transparency, credibility and democracy. We have seen the attack on the OAS observer who stood against electoral fraud.
A credible and transparent recount of all the votes, over which representatives of Caricom are scrutineers, and the peaceful acceptance of the result by all parties, are crucial to Guyana’s future. If the recount is upended under any pretext, and the Caricom scrutineers cannot pronounce it as transparent and credible, the swearing-in of any Government will be regarded as illegal, with grave consequences particularly for the people involved.
Our Guyana, itself, instead of proceeding on a path of progress, will be mired in international odium, halting the economic growth and social improvement to which our people have been looking forward.
The international community has given Caricom an opportunity to help Guyana out of this morass. According to a joint statement at the OAS meeting, Caricom stated it has “no interest in which political party wins the elections; Caricom’s interest is that, at the end of the recounting process, democracy must be the winner”.
The international community has taken Caricom at its word and expressed that, “If democracy fails in any Caricom country, it fails in the larger community. As an institution, Caricom cannot allow this to happen in any member state.
The only fraudulent acts or anomalies that have so far been uncovered from the March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections occurred in District Four in the figures presented by Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo, and the litany of objections being raised by the coalition caretaker Government daily “with no proof”.
Guyana must be thankful to the local and international observers who were here for the March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections on E-Day. If not for these observer teams, we might have a result declared already, which would not have favoured the will of the people of Guyana.
Sincerely,
David Adams
