The following is an opinion piece by Kit Nascimento, a former Minister under the Peoples National Congress (PNC) Government.
It is clear as daylight on a bright sunny day, that David Granger, in power as a de facto President, is most certainly complicit in an obvious and determined decision of APNU+AFC to remain in government regardless of the expressed will of our people in the 2nd March Elections.
It is equally clear that the GECOM Secretariat, in the persons of Keith Lowenfield and Clairmont Mingo and others in command, have conspired to serve the determination of Granger and the APNU+AFC to remain in power.
I first witnessed this when Mingo set out to rig the tabulation of District 4. I said then that “in all my life, considerable life and career, in and out of politics in this country, I have never seen such a bare faced, ugly and deliberate attempt to rig an election. Yes, I have seen and I am aware of attempts where elections were rigged but not in this kind of manner. It was utterly disgusting”.
It is also, now, perfectly clear that Keith Lowenfield, as the Chief Elections Officer of GECOM, reportedly being aided and abetted by three (3) GECOM Commissioners serving the interest of the APNU+AFC leadership, is prepared even to defy the explicit directions of Chairman Claudette Singh when all else has failed to keep Granger in power.
It was as long ago as 17th March that I wrote that “it must be either that Mr. Granger has lost control of the party of which he is the Presidential candidate or that he has acted in a manner that brings into question his personal credibility and honesty”. That was when Granger had invited the first CARICOM delegation to our country to “supervise” a recount of the electoral result and his party candidate, Ulita Moore, sabotaged the CARICOM visit. I was castigated by APNU+AFC supporters for having dared to question Granger’s honesty.
Again, on 22nd March, I wrote that “it has become increasingly clear that Mr. Granger is a hypocrite in all that he says and does”.
In April, I wrote expressing my “deep apprehension of what is yet to follow from the ugly and unveiled determination of the APNU+AFC leadership to prevent the conclusion of an election which they know they have lost” and their invention of “a narrative which reads as a tissue of lies”.
It is that narrative of alleged, unproved “anomalies” that they pursued throughout the Recount and which has been adopted wholesale by Lowenfield in his Report submitted to the Chairman of GECOM in violation of the law. It is that narrative that is now before the Court in a final desperate attempt to escape Chairman Singh’s decision to recognize the fact that the Recount has confirmed the PPP/C as the choice of the electorate.
Not once, but on a number of occasions, Granger had promised all of Guyana that “whatever declaration is made by the Chairman of the Elections Commission would be recognized as legitimate by the Coalition government”. He added that “as President of Guyana and leader of the government, it is my policy that any declaration coming from the Chairman of GECOM would be accepted by the Government of Guyana”.
But, Granger, faced with the Chairman leaving no option to Lowenfield but to report on the result of the balloted Recount and her announcing a declaration of the PPP/C as winning the Elections, has broken even that promise when he reportedly summoned the clan at State House on Wednesday to move to the Appeal Court and to denude the Chairman of her authority to pronounce on the elections result.
David Granger is without shame, is without morose, is without care, is without concern in his grasp to rule regardless of the consequences to our country. We must now hope that our Courts, at least, are ready to recognize the will of the people.
