Was Published on May 18, 2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Apart\nfrom making Guyana win top spot in the Guinness Book of Records for the longest\ncount of election votes on both an absolute and per capita basis, GECOM\u2019s\nconduct of the recount has not been short of clownishness. Some weeks ago I\nreferred to Claudette Singh, GECOM\u2019s Chairman as heading a circus. Claudette is\nhelped by a huge (no pun intended) pool to draw from. As the defeat of the APNU+AFC\nis confirmed by each ballot recounted, both desperation and clownishness seem\nto have affected the Coalition\u2019s leaders and their surrogates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nmost recent victim is Amna Ally, General Secretary of the PNCR who on Friday\ntold the media that one dead voter would invalidate the elections \u2013 the\nAPNU+AFC\u2019s Plan D after the Mingo\/Lowenfield skit failed to deliver the\nswearing in of their leader David Arthur Granger. Had Ally used her recent\nattempts to engage Claudette Singh to ask her about the case brought by PNCR\nsupporter Esther Perreira adjudicated by the same Claudette Singh, she would\nhave learnt that Singh said in that case the following: \u201cIn other words, even\nif an unlawful act or omission is proved, the election would be valid if the\nconduct of the election was substantially in accordance with the electoral laws\nand the unlawful act or omission did not affect the result.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ally\nmight also not have learnt about the part of the Esther Perreira decision in\nwhich Claudette Singh stated that in election petition matters, the petitioner\nhas to prove her case on \u201ca preponderance of probability\u201d. What is coming out\nfrom people like Coretta McDonald, James Bond, Ayodele Roach, Carol Joseph,\nKidackie Amsterdam, Christopher Jones and Sherod Duncan are mere fishing\nexpeditions, meant to waste time and stretch the life of a twice illegal\ngovernment. They are of no evidentiary\nvalue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And\nshortly before Ally, elections cognoscenti and GECOM\u2019s self-appointed\nspokesperson Vincent Alexander told the media that if the votes in one of a\nhundred boxes could not be counted because the box was soaked, then there\nshould be a by-election! No Mr. Alexander, the national PR system does not work\nthat way. Both Alexander and the Chair know that the only problem facing GECOM\nis the fraudulent tabulation of the Region Four votes by Mingo and Lowenfield\u2019s\ninchoate attempt to act upon it. This circus, and the waste of taxpayers\u2019\nmoney, could have ended long ago if Singh and Alexander were committed to doing\nthe right thing and demand the SOP\u2019s from the Mingo\/Lowenfield duo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of\ncourse, the first aspirants to Claudette Singh\u2019s pool was crime sleuth\nextraordinaire Khemraj Ramjattan who, using his special lens, detected the work\nof Russian hacks who were able to penetrate the homes, offices and safes of all\nthe officials holding the original copies of the statements of polls, cleverly\nerasing and inflating the APNU+AFC\u2019s numbers and deflating the PPP\/C\u2019s numbers\nso that they could match Mingo\u2019s! Ramjattan\u2019s astuteness was emulated by his\ncolleague David Patterson who opposed live streaming because it was an\nindustrial relations\/human rights issue. And showing a facility with maths\ninvented by the AFC leadership, he argued against the consecutive counting of\nthe Regions votes because \u201cto recount each region one at a time doesn\u2019t make\nsense. By the time you get to Region Four, we will be probably in day 35.\u201d Poor\nDavid, a quantity surveyor with a supposed facility with figures, is infected\nwith fake maths which tell him that the duration of the count will be shortened\nif the votes of the Regions were recounted concurrently rather than\nconsecutively. The mathematical fabric of this country has been destroyed for a\ngeneration or two \u2013 thanks to the AFC leadership and the Court of Appeal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Harmon,\nTrotman and Broomes held up Granger on March 5 in Lamaha Street and told how he\nhad won the elections. He seemed a bit dazed, spoke hurriedly and made a quick\nexit. Now, after all the clownish displays, subterfuges, denials of\ninternational observers and most pathetic attempts to discredit the voting on\nMarch 2, Aubrey Norton, PNCR Executive Member is claiming that the same results\nunder which they were vigorously clamouring to install Granger \u2013 in a historic\nuse of other people\u2019s language \u2013 are from a flawed election.\n\nBut let me explain Norton. His incredulity about\nthe elections is that with just about every advantage conceivable, the APNU+AFC\nlost the elections by no small margin. GECOM was clearly in its corner, if not\nits pocket. Indeed, had it not been for such partisanship and quite a bit of\nfraud, the APNU+AFC would already have been confirmed as losers, sparing the\ncountry the risk of international sanction. Having the elections regulator on\nyour side is clearly worth a bit. Sadly, I have to state that I think that the\nCourt\u2019s failure to act sensibly in some cases and decisively in others also\ngave GECOM and the APNU+AFC time to play with the Voters List and consumed in\nno small measure the energy of the opposition. The Coalition had the Consolidated\nFund at its disposal, and the big contractors in their corner \u2013 all worth\nmillions of real Dollars. It had incumbency \u2013 that too worth a few percentage\npoints. It had and continues to have the executive, including the Government,\nthe State agencies, the Army, the Police, the streets. You are right, Norton.\nNot only is it incredible that they could lose, they really deserved to lose.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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\u2019s conduct of the recount has not been short of clownishness. Some weeks ago I referred to Claudette Singh, GECOM\u2019s Chairman … <\/p>\n