Opinion Piece by Nigel Hinds
Recounting all the ballots using the SOPs for Region 4, is all that’s needed to complete the tabulation for Guyana’s March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections, in a manner that meets the requirements of The Representation of the People Act and rulings made by the Chief Justice, Roxanne George-Wiltshire.
Non-adherence to using the SOPs is illegal, suppressive and deplorable. What are the odds for the true winner of the March 2, 2020 elections being declared using the recount maneuver? Virtually zero!
The persons who brought the adding and tabulation to a standstill are still in charge, persons such as the Chairperson and her three cohorts, plus the Chief Elections Officer, Deputy Chief Elections Officer, and a select group of support staff from GECOM that will execute any illegality asked of them.
It really is a breaking point of sanity, to expect the same GECOM that committed major acts of fraud in March of 2020, during the Region 4 tabulation – to not continue to drag out the process and make the vote recount into a complete fiasco, by using a multilayered and circuitous recount path.
While not using the SOPs for tabulation that are in their possession, which law and reason dictate be used. Everyone is aware that adding and tabulating the SOPs is in keeping with the Representation of the People Act, and will speedily halt the merry-go-round, now being called a recount.
In my opinion the international community has abandoned us to the criminalized GECOM, to the point where the winning party, namely the PPP, has to yet again to depend on GECOM, an institution that has proven even to our court system their willingness to rig and rob.
The new scam being set up by GECOM is so unnecessary, so disrespectful, so convoluted and problem prone that it is provides the perfect means to engineer plots for a new election.
With PPP being the undeclared winner of the March 2, 2020 elections, and the party having no influence over the “tainted four” that rule over GECOM, new elections will be welcome by the current illegitimate and uncaring government.
It is unpredictable for how long the International Community will allow this rape of the democratic process to continue, suffice to say it has been going on in Guyana for far too long. Our local private media has tried with little success to question the wily Vincent Alexander after multiple GECOM meetings.
Alexander has responded by stating absurd platitudes with a straight face, saying GECOM has treated the legally required SOPs as old news or matters that have already been settled. His job is to defend the bizarre and irrational decisions taken by the tainted and partisan four – being the Chairperson and her crew of Coalition Commissioners.
The rational options are tossed aside by Alexander as outdated issues that were nullified by his Commission as he toys with the media; the Chairperson and her three musketeers reign supreme.
To have a shred of confidence in Justice Claudette Singh is to believe she was unaware of the rigging by Mingo. Mr. Raymond Gaskin our local commentator was right all along. I was somewhat stunned when he stretched on tiptoe and at the top of his voice, said with absolute certainty at the Red House on September 21, 2019 that the elections will be rigged and rigged, repeatedly.
My thinking then was that the mechanisms put in place by the Carter Center for the 1992 elections, such as: Counting at Polling Stations, posting the tabulated Statement of Polls at the respective Polling Stations, providing each Political Party Represented at the Polling Place with a Copy of the Statement of Polls and a copy to the Chief Elections Officer, among other measures, would prevent rigging. Rigging in my mind, assumed covert and undercover operations. Mingo with the full support of senior officers in the GECOM Secretariat and the Tainted Four made up of the Chairperson and the three Coalition Commissioners, displayed how rigging can be done overtly and in broad daylight. My apologies to Raymond Gaskin!
Mingo was the main character in the diabolical plot to rig the tabulation of votes in Region 4, the trilogy from Spreadsheet to Bedsheet, which started on March 4, 2020; had Mingo displaying how in Guyana you can stop the tabulation of votes by acting sick. March 5, 2020 was day two of the trilogy.
The now resurrected and revived Mingo, reappeared with great vigour, to make declarations from the balcony and elsewhere. Mingo seemed to have gained super energy by the presence of at least ten of the imposter ministers from the APNU-AFC coalition.
Special front row seats were set aside for the former discredited ministers by GECOM, the presence of the shunned ministers certainly seemed to electrify the performance of Mingo. Thus, his ascent to the baloney, to the great delight of the coalition clique. Not far off, another disappearing act was being carried out by none other than the Chairperson of GECOM, however her ability to vanish was outdone by Mingo’s ability to conjure numbers, defy logic and his general theatrics.
Mingo completed his trilogy from “Spreadsheet to Bedsheet” on March 13, 2020; bringing to the fore, his speed-reading acolytes, showing his obedience to the mouth stomping representative from PNC, use of social distancing to avoid the opposition parties from getting a peek at the Statement of Polls, changing his own pronouncements with frequency, his use of reversible logic, where whatever he said a minute ago could be discarded for whatever the mouth stomper demanded and his own inverse logic.
The Mingo show on March 13, 2020 was so disgusting that he quickly lost the audience of the US Ambassador, UK High Commissioner, EU Ambassador and Canadian High Commissioner, who were the first to fast walk out of Mingo’s theater tent, they left within half-hour of Mingo’s obstreperous and lawless performance.
Mr. Kit Nascimento representing the Private Sector Commission must have regretted not leaving earlier, as he was insulted by the mouth stomper from PNC, in the presence of numerous members of the Guyana Police Force and the other political parties and observers.
Except for one brief appearance to say she was waiting on the final orders from the Chief Justice, the Chairperson maintained her signature accomplishment of vanishing when most needed. The purpose of the play only allowed one-star performer at a time; it was Mingo time.
The refusal and failure of Justice Claudette Singh to publish GECOM’s SOPs, when there is a compelling legal basis to do so, which represents a measure used, whenever there is controversy surrounding the tabulation of votes, means that we will be undertaking the recount without the SOPs sent to the Chief Elections Officer, Mr. Keith Lowenfield. Mr. Lowenfield has shown his willingness to accept whatever garbage he receives from Mingo and no initiative to perform his duties with a semblance integrity.
The recount fandango, foisted upon the hapless opposition is bullyism and psychological tyranny, as it leaves ample room to further abuse the victims of the election rigging, with more rigging opportunities, as containers are opened with ballots and ballot boxes exposed for an extended period of time. Why are we participating in this charade? Because if we do not participate, the illegitimate will be made legitimate; the dictatorship will be able to claim they won the elections, even while bypassing the SOPs.
The recount alley that Justice Singh is embarking upon and engulfing Guyanese in, is not necessary, not rational and not credible; it is irresponsible and amounts to a denial of human rights for most Guyanese.
On April 2, 2020 – US Ambassador, Ms. Sarah-Ann Lynch impressively spoke of her silence breaking an oath she took, now it is clear to me that inaction by the US Secretary of State, Mr. Mike Pompeo has facilitated this scrabbling and senseless recount mayhem that amounts to a destruction of Guyana’s democratic system.
Still, we can take some comfort from the words of America’s greatest freedom proponent, Thomas Paine: “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value.”
