Author: Christopher Ram

This article was Published on the May 26, 2020

Dear Editor,

I refer to a letter of Monday, May 25 by Kit Nascimento (`If David Granger’s character and good name is in question he has only himself to blame’) in the Stabroek News. Mr. Nascimento is unarguably the most capable media/public relations individual in Guyana and has been so for decades. Indeed, if age has done anything to him, it is that it has made him more formidable and fearsome. One takes him on at their peril. I was not at all surprised therefore, at the robustness of his response to the demand by the Ministry of the Presidency seeking an apology for the contents of the letter. They got more, much more than they had bargained for.    

Historian David Granger would have been well aware of some of the famous clashes Nascimento has had with previous presidents. Granger knows too the words “who can libel Burnham” in the Dayclean of the WPA we all used to admire and respect. Granger would therefore be well advised not to take the bait and try to sue Nascimento. He would regret it.

 Like many of us who have lived through or migrated from Guyana to escape the terrifying years of Burnham, Rabbi Washington and the House of Israel, the unbroken sequence of rigged elections, a destroyed economy, food shortages and incompetence on a grand scale, Nascimento is clearly determined that his vote must be counted and fears the return to those dark days. This is theft from him of a basic human right and Granger’s conduct makes him an integral part of that scheme. Nascimento was an observer at the March 2 elections and witnessed first-hand how Mingo and Volda Lawrence put their signatures to a fraudulent document which Keith Lowenfield accepted and elevated and to which David Granger, Vincent Alexander and Joseph Harmon, all men of integrity, honesty and decency, shut their ears, eyes and mouths and I suppose, their conscience. Instead, this group wants Granger to be declared by Claudette Singh as President on a fraud.   Having said that however, I wish to take issue with Nascimento on a small but in my view highly significant statement in his letter, to wit “Ms. Singh does not necessarily have to recognise the recount…“ In this regard, I respectfully refer Mr. Nascimento to the Aide Memoire signed by Granger, Jagdeo and the CARICOM Secretary General. More for the benefit of readers than for Mr. Nascimento, here are the three operative points set out in that document:

• “That a total recount of all ballots from all electoral districts in Regions 1 to 10 would take place urgently (emphasis theirs) in accordance with the Constitution, the applicable law and the judgement of the court issued by Roxane George Chief Justice (ag.) on Wednesday 11th of March 2020.

• “That the high-level team would supervise the recount under the auspices of GECOM and would not engage themselves in the actual counting of ballots. Their presence is to ensure that the recount is done in a free, fair, transparent and credible manner”; and critically

• “To abide by the outcome of a fair and transparent process for the recount.”

Clearly bullet point three binds Claudette Singh and GECOM to a declaration based solely on the recount. Granger and Claudette Singh cannot be so incapable as to not understand plain English. The Aide Memoire is not just a piece of paper to be ignored at will. It has democratic, constitutional and international law implications. Granger is infamous for double and multiple speak and for serial violations of the country’s Constitution and other laws. This is not a circus to amuse and deceive Guyanese.

Any attempt by Claudette Singh to violate the Constitution, the applicable law and the judgment of the court issued by Roxane George Chief Justice (ag.) on Wednesday 11th of March 2020, and by Granger to circumvent this Aide Memoire would have consequences far more grave than their reputations. 

Yours faithfully,

Christopher Ram

This Article was Published on the June 1. 2020

Claudette Singh, GECOM Chair has now confirmed a statement by APNU+AFC’s GECOM commissioner Vincent Alexander reported in the media on Saturday May 30. In that statement, Alexander had said that Singh had written the Chief Immigration Officer to seek confirmation of a list provided by APNU of persons who were out of Guyana on elections day but for whom votes were fraudulently cast. PPP/C Commissioner Sase Gunraj had been reported in the same media article as stating not only that GECOM had made no such decision, but that he as an opposition Commissioner was not even aware of any correspondence from APNU. 

As the recount drags on, Singh’s integrity and competence are being called into serious question. It is now a matter of public knowledge that Singh had written the Commissioner of Police one week earlier for the very purpose stated by Alexander. He knew, but not the opposition Commissioners. The subject matter is a policy issue for a seven-person Commission not as Singh thinks, a one-person dictatorship. From the language and the details in the recitals to Order 60, it is clear that its drafting required the knowledge and expertise of someone fully conversant with the detailed operational aspects of elections. That someone is Vincent Alexander. It is hard to say which is correct but this matter reveals that Alexander is either Singh’s confidante or she is his poodle.

This issue is another example of Singh leading the electoral body like a circus. Here is why. APNU collaborated with its illegal MP and Minister of Citizenship Winston Felix to obtain from the Immigration Department travel information of certain persons on the Official List of Electors. With the information thus obtained, APNU passed the information to its agents in the recount. Then the information finds its way on the Observation Reports which are then passed to the Chief Election Officer. Confident that the information now forms part of the records of GECOM, election agent Joseph Harmon then writes Singh officially while issuing threats and dog whistles publicly. To complete the literally vicious circle, Singh then writes the Chief Immigration Officer asking him to confirm the information of which he is the source!  

Lawyers use the term “probative value” often to challenge the quality of legal evidence. Auditors use the term “appropriateness” to measure the relevance and reliability of audit evidence. Seemingly intent on embarking on an investigation into whether or not GECOM has carried out its constitutional duty Claudette Singh is creating another brand of evidence which will get her into the history books. But she is taking a dangerous path. 

Here are a few reasons: Investigating any errors, flaws or deficiencies concerning the results of elections is for the exclusive jurisdiction of the High Court. Related to that is the well-known principle that one cannot be a judge in one’s own cause. As a retired judge Claudette Singh cannot not know that. Or has she fallen for Harmon’s dangerous threat about calm? And now that she has evidence of questionable value from the Commissioner of Police, will her investigation dispense with the right to be heard rule?  

Singh has ineptly reversed the burden of proof and kowtows to the APNU. So, with the authority or knowledge only of Alexander, she has assumed the onus of proof in that Party’s fake allegations. Would she now call the Commissioner of Police and all the GECOM staff and parties agents involved to give evidence and how will she treat with any rebuttals from Harmon’s/James’ list of persons? And finally, would Singh tell us what standard of proof she will insist on in this clandestine inquiry and wonder whether she is aware of the House of Lords case, In Re B (Children) (Fc) Appellate Committee? I ask these questions to show the absurdity of the path that the self-described Iron Lady has secretly and illegally chosen.     

Singh is trying her best to stretch this thing out. But as the Addendum to Order 60 acknowledges, GECOM is required to make a “declaration of the results on the final credible count of the elections”. There is no room for APNU’s David Hinds’ draw and thankfully, the possibility for realising his call for the destruction of the ballot boxes is fast disappearing. Once the tabulation of the Statements of Recounts is completed, the Mingo/Lawrence/Lowenfield declaration for District Four will die a natural death. The day of reckoning is fast approaching.

It will not end well for Claudette Singh’s reputation

Was Published on the May 31, 2020

As matters now stand, ninety days after the March 2020 elections, the wish of the Granger-led APNU+AFC is that Claudette Singh will deliver to it a victory denied by the electorate. That party has reason to be optimistic. Claudette Singh voted against eight and one-half of the ten motions brought by the opposition-appointed GECOM commissioners; was present on both occasions when Mingo made his transparently fraudulent District 4 declaration; compounded that failure by keeping that declaration live; insisted on a recount Order (# 60 of 2020) in violation of the Aide Memoire of the agreement signed by Granger, Jagdeo and CARICOM chair; and allowed herself to be transformed into a figure of national derision by Lowenfield, Roxanne Myers and the COVID Task Force.

There is fear that the allocation of stations in the Recount Order and Addendum of May 29 as they become available seems designed to ensure that the recount will be a replay of Mingo’s District Four fiasco with the difference being that that this time, the main actors will be Lowenfield and Myers. The same Myers who was installed through the instrumentality of Granger’s illegally appointed James Patterson.

Having shared with Singh the date of appointment as Senior Counsel by Granger, Basil Williams is playing to Singh by praising her eminent qualifications and wealth of experience as a judge. He now seeks to encourage Claudette Singh to function as judge and jury, executor and arbitrator, public authority and tribunal. Again, Singh is so predictably unpredictable that she may very well admit that she and her Commissioners have failed in their duty to supervise elections in accordance with their constitutional mandate! 

Ignoring the basic principle that he who asserts must prove, Williams is now saying that it is GECOM’s responsibility to investigate APNU’s outlandish claims of discrepancies involving between 90,000 votes according to Aubrey Norton, and as much as 175,000 by Joseph Harmon. The claim being peddled by Harmon and Norton in particular, is simple in its inanity: take any box and raise a single question about one vote, and hey, the entirety of the votes in that box becomes discredited. What Harmon, Norton and Williams lack in intellect, commonsense and consistency, is over-compensated for by bullyism, deceit and force. 

With no evidence produced, Norton reduces his argument to absurdity by claiming that there were only 1,261 foreign voters or 65% of the Coalition’s 1,937 claims of irregularities, reminding me of my days doing Economics in school and being taught that spurious accuracy earns credibility. Unfortunately, Norton did not provide particulars of the irregularities involving the other 676 dead voters who arose from eternal sleep in the blissful Le Repentir, found their way to various polling stations, past the police, presiding officer and party agents, voted and then returned to their peaceful abode.  

Basil Williams has cited expansively the several recitals in the Recount Order but very conveniently ignores part of the recital that speaks of “statistical anomalies” which Harmon and Norton seem not to acknowledge or to understand. Let us try to help them.

1.  Each Polling Station has three GECOM officials – a presiding officer, a poll clerk and a counting agent. GECOM therefore had 7,017 officials in 2,339 polling stations. Add to that the 2,339 APNU+AFC Polling Agents and for the smaller parties 233 agents, being one out of every ten polling stations. That gives a grand total of 9,589 non-PPP persons. What is the statistical probability of not one of these 9,589 persons detecting a single one of the many thousands who according to Harmon, Norton and Williams committed impersonation on March 2, 2020?

2.  The indelible ink used to mark a voter’s index finger takes days and weeks to disappear or wash out. What is the statistical probability of even 1% of Norton’s 80,000 cleaning off their ink and finding someone looking like them, with a matching ID card turning up at these polling stations again and getting past 9,589 persons? Not to mention the 2,339 police officers standing at the entrance of the polling stations to deter various forms of voting offences. 

3.   What is the statistical probability of all these cases of double voting timing their entry to the hundreds of polling stations so as to avoid the visits by the scores of foreign and local observers including those from the pro-Government GPSU?

4.  What is the statistical probability of the APNU+AFC dominated GECOM Secretariat led by Lowenfield and Myers employing not one, not one hundred, not one thousand, but 7,017 individuals who could possibly be so inept not to detect a single anomaly on voting day?  

5.  What is the statistical probability of all 2,339 APNU+AFC polling agents being so collectively incompetent, blind, dumb and asleep unable to detect or report a single case of the type of anomaly of which the APNU+AFC recounting agents are now claiming took place on a scale so massive that the elections are no longer credible? 

6.  The PPP/C gained 202,000 votes in 2015 and 232,000 votes in 2020. If we take away Harmon’s 86,000 votes from the PPP/C’s 2020 votes, they are left with 146,000 votes. What is the statistical probability of a Party that had thrashed the APNU and the AFC in November 2018 municipal elections by a margin of 1.8:1 losing 37% of its voter support between 2015 and 2020?

7.  If Harmon’s 86,000 figure is correct it means that 20% of the votes cast in 2020 are invalid. What is the statistical probability of one out of every five votes cast being unlawful in a thoroughly paper-based elections? 

Like Williams, I am relying on the skewed Order 60 that was rigged away from a recount to a farcical audit. The foolishness being peddled by Harmon, Norton and Williams and their Recount agents cannot pass the commonsense test. GECOM ought not to have encouraged and accepted such nonsense in the first place. When all these statistical probabilities are added together, they have moved to the realm of impossibility. Note that I am using a matrix clearly consistent with Order 60.

I will not presume to tell Claudette Singh what she should do with the recurring theme of unsubstantiated anomalies in the Observation Reports. It is clear that they have no merit. But so too was the fraudulent tabulation of Mingo, Volda Lawrence and Lowenfield which Claudette Singh has preserved rather than investigate. Instead, quite outside of her and GECOM’s jurisdiction, she is pursuing baseless allegations in violation of her own principle in the Esther Perreira case that he who asserts must prove.

Finally, I draw attention to the opinion of Chief Justice Roberts of the US Supreme Court in a decision handed two days ago in a COVID-19 related case: improbability and its converse are fundamental to the determination of litigated issues.

Was Published on May 18, 2021

Apart from making Guyana win top spot in the Guinness Book of Records for the longest count of election votes on both an absolute and per capita basis, GECOM’s conduct of the recount has not been short of clownishness. Some weeks ago I referred to Claudette Singh, GECOM’s Chairman as heading a circus. Claudette is helped by a huge (no pun intended) pool to draw from. As the defeat of the APNU+AFC is confirmed by each ballot recounted, both desperation and clownishness seem to have affected the Coalition’s leaders and their surrogates.

The most recent victim is Amna Ally, General Secretary of the PNCR who on Friday told the media that one dead voter would invalidate the elections – the APNU+AFC’s Plan D after the Mingo/Lowenfield skit failed to deliver the swearing in of their leader David Arthur Granger. Had Ally used her recent attempts to engage Claudette Singh to ask her about the case brought by PNCR supporter Esther Perreira adjudicated by the same Claudette Singh, she would have learnt that Singh said in that case the following: “In other words, even if an unlawful act or omission is proved, the election would be valid if the conduct of the election was substantially in accordance with the electoral laws and the unlawful act or omission did not affect the result.”

Ally might also not have learnt about the part of the Esther Perreira decision in which Claudette Singh stated that in election petition matters, the petitioner has to prove her case on “a preponderance of probability”. What is coming out from people like Coretta McDonald, James Bond, Ayodele Roach, Carol Joseph, Kidackie Amsterdam, Christopher Jones and Sherod Duncan are mere fishing expeditions, meant to waste time and stretch the life of a twice illegal government. They are of no evidentiary value.      

And shortly before Ally, elections cognoscenti and GECOM’s self-appointed spokesperson Vincent Alexander told the media that if the votes in one of a hundred boxes could not be counted because the box was soaked, then there should be a by-election! No Mr. Alexander, the national PR system does not work that way. Both Alexander and the Chair know that the only problem facing GECOM is the fraudulent tabulation of the Region Four votes by Mingo and Lowenfield’s inchoate attempt to act upon it. This circus, and the waste of taxpayers’ money, could have ended long ago if Singh and Alexander were committed to doing the right thing and demand the SOP’s from the Mingo/Lowenfield duo.

Of course, the first aspirants to Claudette Singh’s pool was crime sleuth extraordinaire Khemraj Ramjattan who, using his special lens, detected the work of Russian hacks who were able to penetrate the homes, offices and safes of all the officials holding the original copies of the statements of polls, cleverly erasing and inflating the APNU+AFC’s numbers and deflating the PPP/C’s numbers so that they could match Mingo’s! Ramjattan’s astuteness was emulated by his colleague David Patterson who opposed live streaming because it was an industrial relations/human rights issue. And showing a facility with maths invented by the AFC leadership, he argued against the consecutive counting of the Regions votes because “to recount each region one at a time doesn’t make sense. By the time you get to Region Four, we will be probably in day 35.” Poor David, a quantity surveyor with a supposed facility with figures, is infected with fake maths which tell him that the duration of the count will be shortened if the votes of the Regions were recounted concurrently rather than consecutively. The mathematical fabric of this country has been destroyed for a generation or two – thanks to the AFC leadership and the Court of Appeal.

Harmon, Trotman and Broomes held up Granger on March 5 in Lamaha Street and told how he had won the elections. He seemed a bit dazed, spoke hurriedly and made a quick exit. Now, after all the clownish displays, subterfuges, denials of international observers and most pathetic attempts to discredit the voting on March 2, Aubrey Norton, PNCR Executive Member is claiming that the same results under which they were vigorously clamouring to install Granger – in a historic use of other people’s language – are from a flawed election. But let me explain Norton. His incredulity about the elections is that with just about every advantage conceivable, the APNU+AFC lost the elections by no small margin. GECOM was clearly in its corner, if not its pocket. Indeed, had it not been for such partisanship and quite a bit of fraud, the APNU+AFC would already have been confirmed as losers, sparing the country the risk of international sanction. Having the elections regulator on your side is clearly worth a bit. Sadly, I have to state that I think that the Court’s failure to act sensibly in some cases and decisively in others also gave GECOM and the APNU+AFC time to play with the Voters List and consumed in no small measure the energy of the opposition. The Coalition had the Consolidated Fund at its disposal, and the big contractors in their corner – all worth millions of real Dollars. It had incumbency – that too worth a few percentage points. It had and continues to have the executive, including the Government, the State agencies, the Army, the Police, the streets. You are right, Norton. Not only is it incredible that they could lose, they really deserved to lose.

Published on On March 24, 2020

There are three supreme organs of democratic power in Guyana: The Parliament which is made up of the President and the National Assembly; the President; and the Cabinet. The Cabinet has been dissolved and compliments of the CCJ, the President and his Cabinet are lame duck institutions. Moreover, David Granger’s moral authority has been severely damaged by the patently fraudulent declaration of results by the Returning Officer of Region 4 which the Chief Justice (ag.) has declared unlawful and unconstitutional. Given the opportunity to make amends, the Returning Officer compounded his illegality by what appears to have been fraudulent means. A Contempt Action against him has stalled. Then one of Granger’s candidates brought an action effectively to uphold the fraudulent declaration. That case is being heard by a different judge and Guyanese face the prospects of conflicting decisions from the court.

If the second judge accepts the arguments advanced by the lawyers for Granger’s candidate, the average Guyanese will be totally confused. Such confusion alone, will add to concerns on how the courts can be used to subvert democracy, undermining their confidence in the court system. 

Granger discredited the presidency when in an agreement with the Leader of the Opposition, he brought CARICOM officials to supervise the recount only to have the agreement scuttled by his GECOM nominees and by one of his own candidates. We cannot forget GECOM, a constitutional body responsible for the holding of proper elections. It has shamelessly discredited the entire elections by its clumsy and incompetent declaration process, exposing Guyana to imminent, international pariah status.      

Then there is the Guyana Police Force whose conduct in a number of events related to the elections has caused the recall of memories of Burnham’s goons – the Rabbi Washington-led House of Israel. With no Parliament, there can be no Budget and heaven knows what the Finance Minister is doing with the Consolidated Fund. So we really have only some basic features of a functioning state still in operation.

I had held the view following the No Confidence Motion (NCM) that Granger’s position as President had become unlawful and by virtue of Article 95 of the Constitution, the Chancellor of the Judiciary ought to have assumed the presidency. The CCJ however, by unfortunate and unnecessary language, gave Granger a respite. The situation concerning Granger’s legitimacy has again surfaced with compelling evidence that he has lost the elections. He is clearly hanging on by way of the shenanigans of his people in GECOM and his Party’s use of the court system.

GECOM’s mandate is to deliver results no later than fifteen days after the elections. It is now twenty-one days since the elections and it seems clear that the results can take weeks and possibly months, before the matter is finally resolved. Following that declaration, there will be a number of steps before the commencement of the Twelfth Parliament. The Minister of Finance will then have three months to present a Budget. There is no guarantee when normal spending will resume. Other constitutional bodies, the public service and state agencies will have to operate on a limited budget – hardly desirable in the first year of oil. Assuming that this is all done under the flawed declaration by the Returning Officer of Region 4, every state agency and public official will have to confront the wider question of their role and relationship with an illegitimate and illegal administration.

In this very grim scenario, some mention should be made of the Guyana Defence Force which is also a constitutional body, though like the other executive arms of the state, not a democratic organ. 

The oath taken by officers of the GDF is to “bear true and faithful allegiance to the State of Guyana … and to honour, uphold and reserve the Constitution”. One of the insertions to the 1980 Constitution made as part of the Herdmanston inspired constitutional reforms was Article 197A which is reproduced below:   

“(1) The State’s defence and security policy shall be to defend national independence, preserve the country’s sovereignty and integrity, and guarantee the normal functioning of institutions and the security of citizens against any armed aggression.

(2) The Defence and Security Forces shall be subordinate to national defence and security policy and owe allegiance to the Constitution and to the Nation. The oath taken by members of the Defence and Security Forces shall establish their duty to respect the Constitution.

(3) The Guyana Defence Force established under the Defence Act shall in the discharge of its constitutional responsibilities function in such a manner as to earn the respect and enjoy the confidence of citizens.”  

Quite what the defence and security policy of Guyana is, is not set out in any single document but I draw guidance from an autographed copy of Granger’s book National Defence – A Brief History of the Guyana Defence Force.  At page 39, under the caption Power, Granger’s opening words were “A major influence on defence policy – the constitutional factor – was derived in theory, from the House of Assembly and the Council of Ministers”. I rely on this not only because Granger has occupied the position of President, but also because Granger was the political commissar in the GDF during Burnham’s tenure. He must be taken to understand the concept and operation of the country’s defence and security policy and the GDF’s duty to carry out that policy set out in post-Burnham changes to the Constitution. 

The Guyana Defence Force has its own Act: the Defence Act Cap. 15:01. That Act is of course subordinate to the Constitution but it does provide for a Defence Board which includes many of the offices which have now become constitutionally and legally suspect, including the President and the Prime Minister. While the Act vests broad powers in the Defence Board, it also contains specific express and implied exceptions reserved for GDF.     

Commendably, the GDF has maintained a respectful silence over what might have been seen as a civilian matters. It has to be pointed out however, that the installation of any administration under a tabulation process widely regarded as rigged by both domestic and international observers, will cease to be a civilian matter – it goes to the root of our Constitution. In that scenario, it would be difficult to see how the GDF can continue holding to the view that the matter remains a civilian issue and still “earn the respect and enjoy the confidence of citizens.”  The possibility of Guyana ticking all the boxes of a failed state is becoming more likely. Making the unwelcome threat of sanctions all the more real.