An interesting period is ahead

Apr 19, 2020 AFC Column, Features / Columnists

While the nation waits for the recount process to begin, it is important to note the extent to which some of the so-called international elections observers are biased, prejudiced and jaundiced in their opinions and interpretations of exactly what is transpiring in Guyana.
Take for example, former Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding who had headed the mission of the Organization of American States (OAS), based in Washington.
In a very recent missive on Guyana’s elections, he had the personal and political audacity to call for the removal of persons from the process whom he thinks are biased and would do all in their power to compromise the recounting/audit process.
In doing so, he clearly, has his eyes on functionaries from the governing Coalition, whom he no doubt regards as a bunch of electoral thieves, as anti-democratic and hell-bent on retaining power at all costs.
He never for one moment seemed to imply, as he should, that the biased, partial and openly jaundiced persons hovering around the process, trying to ensure that the recount is done in an atmosphere of confusion, would actually come from the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), its surrogates in the private sector and other affiliate groups.
Golding writes that Gecom and those in authority should ensure that “those who have displayed partisan behaviour are excluded” from the process. What he does not know or seem to understand is that the Coalition, led by President David Granger, has basically taken a hands-off approach to the process so as to allow Gecom to do its work, undisturbed by politicos with agendas.
Had he been closely monitoring events in recent weeks, he would have noted that it is the PPP’s group of three commissioners who are the ones who are mortally afraid of an audit of what exactly transpired on Monday March 2, 2020.
He attacked CEO Lowenfield’s PPP-inspired recommendation that the recount, as proposed by those very same PPP commissioners, would have taken 156 days, given the advice that they themselves had given to him.
When that was cast aside, the PPP came up with yet another bizarre and absurd plan for Gecom to have 20 workstations scattered all over the Conference Centre at Turkeyen.
Having 20 stations, some of them operating under tents on the lawns and on the hot concreted floors at the Centre would be a recipe for disaster, and it is known that the Caricom monitoring group which has again been invited to be present, has expressed alarm at such a functionally idiotic work plan submitted by the PPP commissioners.
They are known to be reluctant to work in such an atmosphere and have told those concerned so, cognizant of the level of thuggery that the PPP, its surrogates and some international observers had displayed at the first attempt to declare a result.
Coalition Commissioner Mr. Vincent Alexander was correct in suggesting that the only thing that could result from 20 work stations in operation would be a mob situation similar to that that the PPP and its electoral observer friends staged at Ashmin’s building in the hours after polls had closed.
Twenty work stations, Mr. Alexander correctly argued, would require the presence of hundreds of people in the compound, creating the kind of fertile ground and atmosphere for rigging and political trickery.
“This is a concern that I had raised on a number of occasions in making my own presentation because the calculations show if we are to have 20 workstations, we would have somewhere in the vicinity of 300 persons assembling, and it is my humble opinion that in the context of COVID-19, that you cannot have 300 people assembled in one place at this time,” Mr. Alexander told reporters.
“The contention, however, continues to be that in any of those circumstances of 20, the large number of persons in the compound, to me, would defeat the whole question of how we are trying to deal with COVID-19. That apart, I maintain the position that 20 stations in the compound lends to the mob situation that we were disposed to at the Ashmin’s building and we cannot repeat that, we have to learn from our experience. Therefore, what we have to use is the building, where we can have greater control in terms of who attends what,” Alexander noted.”
There is little doubt that the PPP is not that happy with an audit of the voting as this could lay bare the extent of their shenanigans in many regions. Time will tell.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper)