Electoral insanities unseen in modern times

May 03, 2020 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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What goes through the mind of the leadership of APNU+AFC is a process no genius in psychoanalysis can fathom. With each day that passes the unthinkable is done by the election commission that sets Guyana apart from the rest of the world in contemporary history.
The commission consists of six commissioners and a chairman. That is the top of the pyramid. All seven persons have permanent constitutional status that cannot be revoked. Only the courts can pass judgement on policies and action of GECOM as when the Chief Justice ruled that the tabulation of Region 4 by the returning officer, Clairmont Mingo, was not done according to law. GECOM could not have saved Mingo. Once GECOM had accepted what Mingo did, it was in contempt of court.
The six commissioners and chairman make decision for GECOM. In a majority vote, GECOM can remove or employ personnel of its choice. The Chief Elections Officer (CEO) can be removed by a majority decision. In what can only be the strangest election commission in the world in recent times, the Chief Elections Officer and his deputy can make decisions over and above the authority of a commissioner.
The examples of this are; Deputy Chief Elections Officer, Roxanne Myers, composing edicts that commissioners cannot overturn. A commissioner is a constitutional office holder, Ms. Myers is not. If Myers requests an office staff to remove a visitor from the building because of unkempt appearance, a commissioner can override her. The security at the gate has to listen to a commissioner over Ms. Myers.
The CEO compelled a staff to hand over a flash drive to a policeman, while his action was being filmed for the world to see. No commissioner could have prevented him from so doing. Commissioners Sase Gunraj and Robeson Benn were ordered by the police to leave GECOM premises by GECOM lower staff that did not possess the authority to have these commissioners removed.
Now the most infamous example that has no parallel in modern times. The CEO has in his possession the statements of poll (SOPs) for Region 4 and the commissioners cannot see them. It has to be the most caricatured election situation in history. This gentleman possesses information that the commissioners are entitled to see but he, who has less authority and power than the commissioners decides that he will not make them available.
Now the question is what authority he has to withhold documents from a commissioner. What transpired recently was that the commissioners in a majority vote decided not to make the SOPs available to commissioners. But the question is whether by law the CEO can withhold those documents if requested by an individual commissioner? Aren’t the SOPs the property of GECOM and a commissioner is entitled to examine such properties?
Of course this brings into focus the role of Claudette Singh. From here on until the election impasse is resolved, I will not dignify, Singh with the title of “Justice.” She was a former Court of Appeal Justice but it is my right to decide how I name her in my column. I think it is an insult to Guyana to use the title of “Justice” when writing about her and I will not employ it in my columns.
Singh ruled that the people of Guyana cannot see the SOPs for Region 4. Yet this same woman said that the declaration made on March 14 which contains the results of the election stands until there is a definitive conclusion from the re-counting. Through Singh’s macabre action, Guyana has an election result but the SOPs which made that outcome possible cannot be seen by some of the commissioners themselves, muchless the nation.
Can someone find a parallel situation like that in the past hundred years in the world? Singh of course keeps chalking up critics all over the world and in the process makes the APNU+AFC leadership look shameless. With the exception of two leaders in the AFC – Dominic Gaskin and Khemraj Ramjattan – all other autocrats in both APNU and AFC have asserted victory.
When a ruling party tells the world it won an election but the world cannot see the documents that provide the statistics of victory because the commission and those autocrats do not want to show them, then that is evil. I can think of no other term but evil. Singh of course is at it again. Her friends in APNU+AFC insist that they won the poll and do not mind a recount. But this strange lady has paranoid feelings about transparency. She does not want live streaming for the re-count. In other words the lady doesn’t want transparency. What an unbearable and unbelievable spectacle.

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

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