The Big Lie is antithetical to a democratic society, rule of law and the maintenance of good order

Jun 06, 2022 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Political commentators, elected officials, legal luminaries and news anchors on major networks in the USA have all taken to referring to Donald Trump’s assertions that the US 2020 Presidential elections was rigged and that he had really won by a landslide as “The Big Lie”. Trump and his collaborators employed this demonstrably false narrative to demand investigations and audits at state and federal level, to approach numerous courts, to attempt to use Congress, state governments and legislatures, and his Vice-President, as well as an insurrectionist mob to prevent the certification of official results and to substitute questionable results to maintain him in office. Operationalizing the Big Lie generated absurd legal theories, criminal conduct and attempts at a cover-up which are on-going and under investigation by the US Congress, Justice Department and state authorities.
The arguments that the PPP/C, and others, used as an excuse for protests and violence, preventing the tabulation and declaration of official results, and demanding that President Granger concede defeat and demit office before an official declaration had been made under threat of sanction from every direction were equally absurd and baseless in fact, reason and law. Their demands, openly backed by threats of sanctions and violence, for complete verification, transparency and credibility were farcical and an unprecedented assault on the Constitution and the rule of law.
But unlike in the USA where Attorney-General Bill Barr investigated and reported that the Big Lie was baseless, where sixty-five (65) courts rejected all claims of fraud and a majority in Congress, and Vice-President Pence, insisted on upholding the Constitution and certifying President Biden’s electoral college victory in the face of adversity from an armed, violent mob hurling death threats, the Courts in Guyana demonstrated no such fidelity to our constitution.
I do not believe that the fact that all but one (7/8) of the political parties contesting the elections objected to, and frustrated, the tabulation of results for Region 4 and its declaration was any basis to overturn the results of an election particularly since the reasons given for their objection were spurious. The arguments that were advanced: 1) verification of the Statements of Poll (SOP) were incomplete and 2) that a spreadsheet used to aid in the tabulation of votes was somehow fraudulent and illegal are absurd and false. The law does not provide for any political party or observer to verify any SOPs and they cannot possibly do so since they could not (did not) possess original SOPs to use or compare. Verification of SOPs is a GECOM-only exercise and, outside of the SOPs posted at polling stations, only GECOM’s Presiding Officers, Deputy Returning Officers, Returning Officers and Commission have access to original SOPs. Other parties have only carbon copies or digital ones. Political parties, however, are permitted to make a list of the serial numbers of every SOP issued to polling stations everywhere and, it is clear that there were no issues there, and specific instances of errors in allocation or tabulation were not advanced, much less proven. Moreover, the objection to the use of a spreadsheet (a calculating tool constructed of cells containing numbers which can be read horizontally and vertically) is irrational, irresponsible and not supported by law. Other Returning Officers and election managers, with access to a computer, routinely and necessarily use spreadsheets to aid in their work. It is clear, therefore, that the court action that was initiated was malicious and frivolous, and merely a ruse to give the judiciary the opportunity to intervene and overturn a valid election result.
The fact that 7/8 political parties that contested the elections succeeded in disrupting the Returning Officer (RO), Mingo in the performance of his statutory duties, refused to witness the statutory declaration and walked out, cannot logically be construed as non-compliance by the RO and evidence that the results were not “publicly” declared, particularly since the remaining political party did formally witness the declaration. I confess that I find the justification advanced by the Chief Justice for vitiating the declaration for Region 4 to be confusing at best. A less charitable, and more qualified, observer than myself may find such actions to be arrogant and contemptuous of the Constitution and rights of citizens, and a possible explanation for the subsequent decisions to disallow two election petitions.
All the evidence produced so far has made clear that The Big Lie is antithetical to a democratic society, rule of law and the maintenance of good order. New York University Law Professor, Melissa Murray, believes the Big Lie to represent “a persistent, existential threat to democracy” in the USA and I believe that it is not presumptuous to reason that it is also the case in Guyana.
Sincerely,
Oscar Dolphin

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