Caretaker President David Granger has emerged from the shadows to again peddle his hallow talk about “not interfering” in the work of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).
But in the same breath, he insisted that the highly discredited report submitted by Chief Elections Officer, Keith Lowenfield, must be accepted as the basis for the declaration of the results of the March 2 polls.
On Monday evening, the caretaker President choose to appear on a radio programme hosted by supporter Mark Benchop, even though he has made himself largely inaccessible to the local media corp to address issues in relation to the current political crisis in Guyana.
During the programme, Granger repeated his previous claim that he has “never interfered” and will never try to influence the work of the electoral body.
“I want to assure that the Elections Commission, which, under the Constitution is the sole authority for the management of elections, is still in charge. I don’t interfere with it, I don’t intrude, I don’t give it instructions,” Granger said.
However, at the same time, he contradicted himself, in insisting that the Commission could only be guided by the report submitted by Lowenfield for its final declaration since the CEO is the sole authority provide such a report.
“The CEO is required to produce a report…that report is presented to the Commission, and that Commission has to review the report; and then the fourth and final stage, which we all hope is going to be soon, is that the Chairman is going to make a declaration based on the report submitted by the CEO.
“The Commission is bound to accept the report of the Chief Elections Officer…there is no other authority to prepare such a report. He is mandated to prepare such a report, the report will include a tabulation and also the validation in the form of observations,” the caretaker President outlined.
Only today, former Minister under the Peoples National Congress Government, Kit Nascimento, called out the President for this duplicity saying that this is all part of a plot to allow the Coalition to hang on to power through fraudulent elections results.
“David Granger also continued his sanctimonious claim that he has not and would not interfere in the work of GECOM, but he did just that when he insisted that the discredited and unauthorised Lowenfield report must be accepted by the Chairman of the Elections Commission, in effect, seeking to direct the GECOM Chairman as to what she must or must not do,” Nascimento said via a letter to the editor.
GECOM Chair, Justice Claudette Singh had directed Lowenfield to use the national elections recount figures certified by the Caricom Observer Team pursuant to Article 177 (2) (b) of the Constitution and Section 96 of the Representation of the People Act, Chapter 1:03 to compile his final report.
Lowenfield, however, did not comply with the Chair’s directive. He, instead, unilaterally invalidated over 115,000 votes and handed a ‘victory’ to the APNU/AFC. It is on this basis that the Coalition is hoping to remain in power.
Foreign Powers have called on GECOM to declare the results of the elections on the basis of the certified figures emanating from the National Recount.
The National Recount, which was conducted under the scrutiny of a special Caribbean Community (Caricom) team, shows the PPP/C in a landslide victory with some 15,416 more votes than its main political rival, the APNU/AFC coalition.
The international community – including the Kingdom of Norway, the Heads of the ABCE (United States, British, Canadian and European Union) Diplomatic Missions, a group of powerful US Senators and several bodies such as The Commonwealth, Organisation of American States (OAS), Nelson Mandela’s The Elders’ Group, and CARICOM among others – have been calling for the Granger-led APNU/AFC to concede defeat and demit office.
