My opinion: Claudette Singh is not restrained by the court’s decision

Jun 23, 2020 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

---

I am typing this piece here before I could read the different interpretations of the legal minds on the Court of Appeal decision. But this I know as a layman, the CCJ will not accept the 2020 election as fraudulent if it does not see the evidence in front of it.
This is my position on the Court of Appeal decision. If Claudette Singh does not declare a winner, which she legally can, the PPP will go to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). Once more the CCJ will give a decision that reflects purely on Guyana’s jurisprudence. First we had the Court of Appeal affirming President Granger’s right to appoint a GECOM chairman on his own after he did not find a fit and proper person from an opposition’s compilation of 18 names.
The CCJ clearly showed that the Carter-Price formula in the Guyana constitution was explicit in its intention to remove the unilateral capacity of the president and that he had to make a selection based on the Carter-Price article in the Constitution.
Next was the question of what constituted a majority of 65. The judges in the Court of Appeal ruled that a majority of 65 starts at 34 and not 33. When the appeal was heard before the CCJ, one judge had no-nonsense words to say about the fiction of 34 constituting a majority of 65.
We will now go to the CCJ on Lowenfield’s macabre declaration that a substantial majority of ballots were fraudulent without substantial evidence. Once you are dealing with a court of law, evidence becomes the fundamental requirement that guide judges.
The main dimension of the election drama that one must bear in mind at all times is the fact that the international community will not take into consideration any court pronouncement in its foreign policy decision on the legitimacy of the re-election of David Granger. The die is cast as I write. International society believes that the APNU+AFC lost the 2020 election and it will not recognize a Granger presidency. The list includes the EU, USA, Canada, Commonwealth, and the OAS. CARICOM has not pronounced on its attitude if Granger is sworn in but two issues are important when one looks at how CARICOM will move. One is the pronouncement of the CARICOM recount team that the election reflected the will of the electorate. Secondly, the incoming chairman is of the opinion that Granger has lost. How against those two graphic facts CARICOM is going to accept a swearing in of Granger?
Whatever GECOM does after this court decision, the important international actors that are essential for the survival of Guyana will not accept an APNU+AFC government because of two reasons; it opens the door to a flourish of rigged elections in the world and as a spin-off from that it gives legitimacy to unelected regimes.
One of the constituents in the APNU+AFC entity, the Justice for All Party, has called upon his own party to acknowledge defeat. The leader of the AFC has virtually conceded defeat. Why then would international society disregard the validity the CARICOM report and the documentation from their own observer-missions and recognize a government of ANU+AFC? It is not going to happen.
I don’t believe even in their wildest imagination, the APNU+AFC leadership will sit comfortably in office if GECOM for one reason or the other catapults the APNU+AFC into power based on the miasmic tampering of the election. They know such power will be fleeting, lastly perhaps only months.
I don’t know what GECOM will do; it is anyone’s guess. Speaking personally, I am not a fan of Claudette Singh. My layman’s knowledge tells me that the court’s ruling imposed no restraint on Singh. It simply tells her how she must interpret what “valid” votes mean.
She has the power to do that and in doing so, she cannot be faulted because the court recognizes that GECOM has the constitutional authority to make its own interpretations. Again, from my layperson’s knowledge, I think GECOM can arrive at valid votes count because there is nothing in the Court of Appeal decision that prevents an interpretation of valid votes based on the CARICOM report.
Here is my take. Singh should summon Lowenfield, collect his report, interpret what valid means based on the CARICOM recount process, and declare a winner. If there is no quorum, then another meeting does not require a quorum but a simple majority of commissioners. I know in my heart Singh is not going to do that but I believe in my heart that is the legal and morally right thing to do.

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

---

---