Dear Editor,
When The Carter Center withdrew its electoral experts and international observers from Guyana, it pledged its commitment to promote democracy in Guyana and stated its willingness to return to Guyana when the electoral process resumes. This pledge can be traced back to its 1992 Elections report. However, The Carter Center was forced to abort its mission when the caretaker Government began to frustrate the electoral process using the Court, GECOM and COVID-19. The coalition has since banned the Center from returning to observe the recount.
Until that time, The Carter Center had noted that “the polling observed on March 2nd was well-administered and reflected international standards for democratic elections”. The Center went on to state that, “the process was sound and capable of delivering results that credibly reflect the will of the people”. It also highlighted the fact that it was only with Region Four, “the credibility of the tabulation process deteriorated”. This caused the Center and other international observer groups to denounce the Region Four results as not credible. The OAS Observer Mission’s Head, Bruce Golding shared similar views and stated that the election was well organised.
It is vitally important to note that the caretaker President David Granger had stated on March 3 that he was satisfied with the electoral process despite a few anomalies and abuses such as the “six-digit stamps were only stamping four digits”. These ‘anomalies and abuses’ were rectified by GECOM officials in an efficient manner. Granger was ‘satisfied’ at that time and at no time did he claim that the polling observed on March 2 would not deliver credible results.
This was echoed by GECOM’s Chairperson, Justice (retd.) Claudette Singh who unequivocally stated that “GECOM has delivered free, fair and credible elections”. She emphasised that “the elections were well run” and “the CEO and his hardworking Secretariat did a fantastic job”. A headline caption in the State-owned Guyana Chronicle read, “Elections was free and fair”. Indeed not any of the political parties disputed that the polling on March 2 was not imbued with those characteristics.
However, after the failure of the coalition to block the recount and swear-in Granger based on fraudulent elections results, there is now a sinister move to discredit the polling activities which took place on March 2 in an effort to abort the entire elections results and call fresh elections which would probably give them another year or more in office.
The Region Four recount has exposed the massive fraud perpetrated by Mingo and his team, therefore, the only alternative now is to attack the credibility of the elections. But the time for that has long gone. The coalition is now raising frivolous objections which they had ample time to address during ‘the claims and objections period’ and furthermore, it begs the question whether their ‘polling/counting’ agents were sleeping during the elections day process. It is also crystal that many PNC loyalists were employed as Presiding Officers and Returning Officers and the entire GECOM Secretariat, including the CEO and the DCEO, is PNC-controlled. It is impossible to accept that these people who controlled GECOM will allow ‘anomalies and abuses’ to be in favour of the PPP/C.
The APNU/AFC lost the 2020 Elections ‘fair and square’ and have so far refused to accept that fact and have embarked on a demolition course. They have blocked The Carter Center by installing Harmon as the CEO for the COVID-19 Task Force, they have neutralised Timothy Jonas, they have been creating fake ‘Breaking News’, they have blocked cell phone use for live streaming, they have used their infamous female thug, they have used COVID-19 to curtail the counting time, and they are trying desperately to realise Lowenfield’s ‘156-day count’.
The APNU/AFC claimed to have won the elections yet they cannot provide their SoPs and neither can GECOM’s CEO but the questions are, will a credible recount be allowed to be completed in its entirety? Will there be some more frivolous and time-buying Basil Williams style ‘legal’ challenges before or after it ends? As I have said before, there will be many ‘twists’ in this 2020 Elections.
At each stage, GECOM is providing the opportunity to rig the elections and now it seems that it will provide the opportunity to abort the elections. The Election Day process was free and fair but what has taken place since the Region Four tabulation fiasco and the lies and deceit peddled by the coalition during this recounting process have made credible results dubious.
Yours sincerely,
Haseef Yusuf
