Let the professionals at GECOM do their work

Nov 01, 2024 Letters

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Dear Editor,

In my soul, when I witnessed the inauguration of His Excellency Dr. Mohammed Irfaan Ali in August 2020, I knew that the season would come when I would have to restart writing. Why?  To combat the false narrative with evidence, that will be crafted by those who are determined to change the course of history in their deliberate act of ignoring the truth and engaging in massive acts of subterfuge and deception in an attempt to capture the electoral processes in Guyana; yet again.

I saw a letter to the press on October 31, 2024, crafted by three of GECOM’s Commissioners (Alexander, Trotman, and Corbin.) I want to remind these gentlemen, too many Guyanese are painfully aware of the trauma and anguish that our people endured over those five months in 2020 under their watch, as vigorous attempts were made to destroy our democratic credentials as a country during the Region 4 tabulation process, and in the end, deny the will of the electorate. I was there, in the front seats at the Ashmins Building and Kingston, observing every move they made and documented and highlighted their several acts of transgression. Therefore, when I speak on this matter, it is not hearsay; it is backed with the necessary evidential authority.

At the end of the day after all their skullduggery in 2020, it was basic accounting – the relationship between the closing balance and the opening balance; that defied Mingo in the Ashmins Building in his attempt to manufacture an artificial score.  I was there when he knocked his hands on the table loudly, instructing his team to call the numbers from a spreadsheet, ignoring the real results from the Statement of Polls, only this time in front of 17 observers, including the Ambassador of the United States, Madam Sarah Ann Lynch, who sat right behind me. I took the golden opportunity to “carpe diem” and actively showed her the Statement of Polls to bring truth to power and highlight what was really happening in the live stream. Obviously, Mr. Mingo and his team were not the brightest bulbs in the room.

Therefore, to observe these three Commissioners, who were part of the 2020 leadership process, speaking today about malpractices when Lowenfield, Myers, Hetsburger, Eastman were terminated, I ask – What malpractices? Were these three gentlemen cerebrally obtuse to what happened in 2020 during those five months under Lowenfield, Myers, Hetsburger, Sheffern February, Denise Bobb-Cummings, Michelle Miller, Enrique Livan, Carolyn Duncan, Phillip Azore and a handful of others?  No Sirs, this termination did not happen because of race?

What was on public display at GECOM in 2020 provided more than adequate empirical evidence to conclude that these officials appear to be rather incompetent, performed poorly, allegedly exhibiting acts of pervasive duplicity, and exhibited an attitude of breaking all the rules in Region 4 when it came to the statutorily prescribed process for the counting, ascertaining, and tabulation of these validly casted votes. Therefore, it must have taken some brass from these three Commissioner, to conjure up this letter some four years after, with this convoluted narrative to muddy the truthful tapestry of our Guyanese history.

If these three Commissioners are still not satisfied with my comments, then they can seek guidance from the Report of the Commission of Enquiry into the 2020 Elections which clearly states “we hope that this report will help bring closure to a sad and shameful chapter in the electoral history of Guyana in which the integrity of and trust in the electoral system of Guyana was undermined and temporarily overthrown by the shenanigans of election officials at the highest levels of the systems.”

At this point, no better candidate than Vishnu Persaud is available to conduct the role of CEO of GECOM. He has the history, competence experience, and qualifications (Vishnu has a postgraduate qualification in elections management) and he is an independent thinker. There is one other person, if Vishnu Persaud is not available, who can do this job; Lawrence Latchmansingh. I cannot find any other soul at this time, other than these two competent and qualified gentlemen in 2024, who can do the job required of a CEO of GECOM, without bringing disrepute to the office.  By and large, most of our people are partial to a team and that is their right. But these two gentlemen have proven over the years that they love the art of elections management, they are independent thinkers, they do not take political instructions from any side, they are highly qualified, and they adhere to a professional code of ethics that is embedded to good governance and fairness in the conduct of elections processes.  Let the professionals do their work and the politicos from all sides need to give them the space to function.

For the record, I was advised that some senior officers are still serving in GECOM today after their antics of 2020.  So what capture are these gentlemen talking about as they engage in an adventure that is populated with delusions of grandeur with a splash of racial overtones. That is a dangerous practice associated with a bygone era.  Wrong room Messrs. Alexander, Trotman and Corbin? Team “GEN Z” has no space for your outdated thought set at this time. Maybe the time has come for these gentlemen to upgrade their narrative, reboot their engines with 2024 standards, and seek to ensure that every single Guyanese on the voter’s list gets a chance to vote rather than seeking to pull down, destroy, distort, and insert subterfuge and deception into a system that needs the support from all of us to push through another electoral season?

May the Gods be with the GECOM professionals; the next 12 months will not be easy.

Regards

Sasenarine Singh

Citizen of Guyana

(Let the professionals at GECOM do their work)

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• Alexander, Ashmins Building, f GECOM’s Commissioners, Guyanese, inauguration

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