GECOM SOPs are public documents; failure to publish same reeks of collusion

Apr 22, 2020 Letters

Dear Editor,

The dismissal of the Ulita Moore case by the Appeal Court made one relatively unknown fact to be fully understood by the entire Guyanese populace. It was made known that the GECOM Chair, under Article 162(1) has the power to” issue such instructions and take such action as appear, if necessary and expedient, to ensure impartiality, fairness and compliance with” the election process.
The above now understood, looking back, the GECOM Chair’s silence when Returning Officer (RO) Mingo derailed the electoral declaration process is now viewed as negligence.
When RO Mingo, after verifying almost 300 SOPs, chose to obfuscate from the SOP verification to his spreadsheet, amidst cries of foul from observers and party agents, the Gecom Chair and CEO having their SOPs, out of curiosity, would have done their own tabulation and known that the PPP had won and that Mingo’s spreadsheet was fraudulent.
Yet CEO Lowenfield was prepared to move forward with Mingo’s fraudulent results to the Chairman to declare APNU/AFC as the winner – saved by an injunction by the PPP. This is not catered for by the framers of the Constitution – the framers must have shared the belief that chair and CEO, having sworn to non-allegiance to any political parties and to perform their duties without “fear and favour” would have made them incapable of that which was exhibited after March 2nd.
I figure the framers could not have envisaged persons stooping so low to derail the democratic will of the people – the ultimate reason they were asked to serve.
The fact that the process was allowed to drift into the grey areas of the court and recount, with the CEO and Chair seemingly in pretence of not knowing which party won the elections, put both of them as indifferent to the will of the electorate. These two individuals are creating a monster by instilling false hope to the supporters of the losing party.
All election results since 1992 were declared by verification of SOPs, given the sweeping powers vested in GECOM Chair, had she been acting as she should, she would have published GECOM’s SOPs for all regions, and challenged any complainant to produce their SOPs showing anomalies to get a recount in that particular ballot box or boxes. GECOM’s SOPs published would establish a fact that the chair knows. Withholding that fact from the public is criminal in the context of elections in Guyana and erodes her claim to integrity.
The results for 9 regions were verified by SOPs without any party requesting a recount in the mandated 24 hours as stipulated by the Constitution. In my opinion, any bending backwards to facilitate the procrastination of APNU/AFC by consenting to a recount in all regions can be seen as an act of collusion.
Rudolph Singh

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