Granger not conceding, GECOM must declare result in line with tabulated recount of ballots

Dear Editor,

The Recount of the ballots for the March 2nd General and Regional Elections, which were held over three months ago, has been finally completed.

The people of Guyana have spoken. They have chosen to give the People’s Progressive Party/Civic a majority through the ballot box and the democratic right to form the new government.

Our country has been made to suffer through a more than three months wait for an election result which, in fact, was known the day after the elections were held from the Statements of Poll in the possession of the major contesting parties (including the APNU+AFC), the majority of the International and Local Observers and the international Diplomatic Community, as well as the Chief Election Officer, Keith Lowenfield.

Tragically, however, the country was forced into a Recount of all the ballots cast by the fraudulent act of the GECOM District 4 Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo, and the failure, at the time, of the Chairman of GECOM to intervene.

The Recounted ballots have matched almost exactly, the Statements of Poll which have long been published, but, have, also, dramatically exposed the fraudulent declaration made by the Chief Election Officer, Keith Lowenfield, based on Mingo’s fraudulent tabulation, giving the APNU+AFC a majority, still held in abeyance by GECOM’s Gazetted Order.

In a democracy, at the point where the results of an election are clear, it is expected that the leader of the political party which has lost the support of the people, will concede and congratulate the incoming leader of the new government to take office. That has not happened here.

For weeks now, the APNU+AFC leadership have refused to acknowledge the inevitability of the majority reflected in the ballot boxes. Sadly, they have continued to lie to their own supporters and the rest of Guyana.

Just two days before the conclusion of the Recount, David Granger, in anticipation of the truth of the Recount result about to be concluded, addressed the nation as both Leader of the APNU+AFC and the de facto President of the country, but, instead of conceding, he chose to discredit the result of the Recount.

David Granger, for the first time, publicly embraced what he called “numerous reports of irregularities” and then listed “unstamped ballots, deceased and migrant voters and missing poll books” which he claimed “to have been committed intentionally not accidentally and demonstrate a pattern of manipulation of the electoral process”.

Not a single one of these trumped up, invented allegations advanced by Granger’s party, and now, Granger himself, have been substantiated. Not a shred of evidence has been submitted to GECOM in support of them. In any event, none of these fairytales can have any legal bearing whatsoever on the result of the recounted ballots.

A Recount is what it says it is, a recounting of the balloted votes cast by every voter extracted from all of the ballot boxes in every District, nothing more, nothing less. It is not an audit of the electoral process.

This is what the Aide Memoire between David Granger and Bharrat Jagdeo, amongst other things, agreed to:

“That a total recount of all ballots from all electoral districts from Regions 1 to 10 would take place urgently in accordance with the Constitution, the applicable law and the judgement of the Court, issued by Roxane George, Chief Justice (ag) on Wednesday, 11th March, 2020.

That the High Level Team would supervise the recount under the auspices of GECOM and would not engage themselves in the actual counting of ballots. Their presence is to ensure that the recount is done in a free, fair, transparent and credible manner”.

Let me repeat that, what David Granger and Bharrat Jagdeo, facilitated by Prime Minister Mia Mottley of Barbados and the Chairman of CARICOM, in the presence of Joseph Harmon and Raphael Trotman, and Ambassador Irwin La Rocque, Secretary General of CARICOM, agreed to is “a total recount of all ballots from all electoral districts in Regions 1 to 10”. They did not agree to review the entire electoral process which took place on 2nd March for the simple reason that all of the International Observers, including CARICOM, and all of the contesting parties, including David Granger, had already found the process to be entirely credible.

In the same breath that David Granger set out to denigrate and refuse to accept the result of the Recount, in complete contradiction, he repeats his mantra that he “will abide by the declaration of the Elections Commission”. Let us all hope so.

But then, David Granger’s entire address reeks of dishonesty and prevarication. Here is how he dismisses the reason for the country being forced into a Recount: “Subsequent events resulted in the prolongation of the electoral process well beyond the deadline for the declaration of results…owing to legal challenges” in the Courts, which, unbelievably, he blames on the PPP/C.

Granger, completely ignores the perfidy of Mingo and that it was his candidate, Ulita Moore, and his party’s lawyers who attempted to prevent the Agreement which he entered into with the General Secretary of the PPP/C, Bharrat Jagdeo, to conduct the Recount.

From the very beginning of this ongoing attempt to erode and discredit the result of the March 2nd Elections, it has been obvious that the only beneficiary is the APNU+AFC party. It has been a naked and ugly attempt to enable David Granger and his party to remain in office and hold on to power in violation of the Constitution and the Laws which govern us as a democracy.

Even now, as the final result of the Recount has been tabulated and confirms what the watching world and the majority of Guyanese have long recognized, that the popular will has chosen the PPP/C to govern, David Granger desperately clings to power. As we await the official declaration of the result of the Recount by GECOM, he continues to damage his country, damage his own people, damage our future, and, by misleading his own supporters, seriously threatens the maintenance of peace and good order.

The Chairman of the Elections Commission, former Justice Claudette Singh, has not been exemplary in the conduct of her responsibility of the events subsequent to the Elections which have led us into a Recount.

Nevertheless, she has kept her undertaking given to the Chief Justice, before the Granger/Jagdeo Agreement, that she would facilitate a Recount “should there be discrepancies in the Statements of Poll as called by the Returning Officer”, which she told the Court was “bolstered” by the President and the Leader of the Opposition inviting CARICOM to observe a Recount.

We must now expect that GECOM, under her leadership, will move to declare the result of the Elections in accordance with the tabulated Recount of the ballots, for the swearing in of the Presidential Candidate of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic, Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali.

Yours faithfully, Kit Nascimento