GECOM is going to have to make some tough decisions in the coming weeks

May 24, 2020 AFC Column, Features / Columnists

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In a matter of weeks, maybe days, the beleaguered Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) will be called upon to take what will be perhaps the deepest and most critical look ever at a general elections held in Guyana, given the increasing number of irregularities being discovered during the recount and audit of the March 2, General and Regional Elections.
The governing Coalition, led by President David Granger and Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo, has been receiving daily reports about the massive and systematic irregularities being discovered by our counting agents. To say that the level of systematic fraud heaped upon this nation by the main opposition People’s Progressive Party (PPP) is stunning and unbelievable, would be the understatement of the year. But haven’t fraud and malfeasance been part of the PPP’s DNA for decades?
Evidence of dozens of dead or migrated people mysteriously voting for the PPP is being unearthed daily. Agents of the PPP and the plethora of insignificant small parties lined up behind the PPP are understandably quiet about these discoveries as these are beginning to show an uncomfortable pattern of deceit and fraud that will more than likely come back to haunt the PPP and many of its supporters, many of whom have taken to social media to brag and boast about fraud committed by people who are loyal to the Coalition.
We are told that many of the leaders of these very same smaller parties have bought into promises of cabinet and other high-level positions from the PPP and have abandoned any pretenses that they are looking after their own party interests rather than that of the PPP.
But time will tell. Many on social media have demanded that the Coalition not only publishes its Statements of Polls from March 2 but also provide proof that hundreds, if not thousands, of dead and migrated people had voted for the PPP. We have also seen that PPP agents had refused to stamp ballots in traditional and well known political strongholds of the Coalition, placed Coalition votes in PPP envelopes, declared votes as invalid for illegal reasons and or hid important polling day documents that should have been safely and securely placed in ballot boxes for a day like today. Coalition leaders have said that these documents, including the evidence of massive and systematic fraud by the PPP would be unveiled to the public at the right time, not at anyone else’s bidding or urgings. From what we are seeing, the commission is going to have its work cut out for it in the coming weeks.
“Based on the GECOM data, logical explanations ought to be provided to the public, for all interested parties to be able to ascertain the credibility of the electoral system and processes. Clear and unambiguous answers are needed,” said a document produced by the Coalition in recent days.
Coalition parliamentary candidate and retired army chief Gary Best made the point clearly on social media that the recount is not merely about numbers but rather based more on credibility of the elections.
“So far our agents have discovered numerous occasions of variance in the number of electors ticked off by presiding officers and polling clerks as voted at 39 polling stations. This is a serious case of concern. The number of valid votes cast at these polling stations amount to 9,395. The number of persons who vote at a polling station must be a statistical certainty. Given the fact that the results of a winner of an election are based on which party receives the most votes, the process that leads to the numerical results must therefore be credible. Variations in the number of electors ticked off as voted amounts to this process not being credible. And we now see an emerging pattern of fraud at these polling stations facilitated by the presiding officers and polling agents. The results of the March 2, General Elections cannot be about numbers only. More importantly, it has to be about whether the process that led to the numbers was credible. So far the data shows that the process was “not credible,” Best made clear in a social media post.
GECOM Chair, Madam Claudette Singh has also set the stage for a proving process that could blow the whole plan to rig the elections and steal a country in broad daylight wide open.
“I am of the view that, he who asserts must prove,” Singh noted, reminding all, the PPP especially, that no decision has as yet been made by her outfit regarding tabulations, a winner, credibility and the level of fraud and irregularities.
Coalition Commissioner Desmond Trotman also stepped up to the plate noting that “if it is that you are speaking about credibility and you want to ascertain that the elections were credible, if you have information that something occurred that shouldn’t have taken place, you have to look at it. There is going to be a summation of all the anomalies that were put forward and those of merit will be looked at,” he said.

(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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