With Edward Meertins-George
I reject the CARICOM report. I reject the CARICOM report because it was tainted by Ralph Gonsalves. My understanding is that the PPP secured a draft of the GECOM CEO report and passed the information onto Gonsalves. Gonsalves then rushed to make a public statement to preempt Lowenfield’s declaration that the election is not credible. He also wanted to unequivocally signal to the CARICOM team what is expected of them. The fact that there is talk that the CARICOM report was adjusted after Gonsalves’ injudicious outburst is no surprise.
Gonsalves actions did not only taint the CARICOM report, he also pushed the team outside the boundaries of their remit, causing them to make pronouncements they should not have. By no stretch should they be directing aggrieved parties to the court. That was not their remit and certainly it is not their place. CARICOM was asked to tell us what they saw. Was the ballot count accurate, were anomalies, irregularities, and instances of voter impersonation reported accurately? That’s it! That’s the end of CARICOM’s role. It is now up to GECOM to decide, and then for any aggrieved party, be it the PPP or APNU-AFC, to approach the court. It is out of place for the team to instruct GECOM what to do. This is especially problematic since Ralph Gonsalves, the architect of the CARICOM team’s conclusion, had issues with electoral fraud in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
I said all of the above to a friend who then asked, what about the OAS and the ABC&E countries? My response was, they are in the same boat like Ralph Gonsalves. Here is how.
In the United States, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed in response to the systemic efforts in several States to deny African Americans the right to vote. The law required that lawmakers in states with a history of discriminating against minority voters get federal permission before changing voting rules. It has been hailed as the single most effective piece of civil rights legislation ever passed by Congress.
In 2013, Republican operatives challenged the law and the supreme court declared that racism was essentially a thing of the past and gutted the Voting Rights Act. This decision opened the flood gates, and several States moved immediately to suppress the vote of minorities and young people.
Since then we have seen the election in Georgia where one candidate for Governor, while doubling as the “CEO of the elections commission,” ensured that over 500,000 voters were thrown off the electoral roll. Despite this blatant fraud he only narrowly won the election. Several other states introduced new restrictive registration laws that are focused on disenfranchising minorities.
At the moment it is public knowledge that voter suppression is the official Republican policy for this year’s Presidential Elections. They are reducing the number of polling places, refusing to allow voting by mail despite the prevailing Coronavirus pandemic, organizing for armed off-duty policemen to stand guard at polling stations in an effort to scare minorities into not turning up to vote, and any and everything else to suppress the vote. It is clear that the Republicans are advancing a philosophy that the ballot in the box is sacrosanct. Once the count turns up higher numbers for Republicans, that’s democracy at work. No one should question the election since democracy is about the ballot count.
It is for these reasons the US controlled OAS, and the US led ABC&E would never support investigation of the anomalies, irregularities and instances of voter impersonation uncovered during the election audit in Guyana. The ballot has to remain sacrosanct because the Republicans cannot set the precedent, albeit outside of the US, where they concede corrupt processes before the ballot count undermines the credibility of an election. They are more interested in their quest to corruptly hold onto power in the US, than about credible elections in Guyana.
Ironically, there is a similarity between the PPP and Republican election playbook. The Republican went to court and got an order to tamper with the electoral roll by unjustifiably removing names. The PPP went to court and got judicial support to maintain a corrupt list. The list is then used to manipulate the ballots in the boxes. Once the ballots are in the box they will both insist the ballots are the only thing that matters.
This is why the US Republican Ambassador in Guyana cannot touch the PPP fraud with a 10 foot pole. Where the Americans lead the others follow, so there goes the OAS and ABC&E.
Ironically, people in Guyana have been pointing to statements by Republican politicians, the OAS and the ABC&E as if they are barometers of the credibility of the process in Guyana. They have even turned to pointing to Ralph Gonsalves, a man accused of rigging 3 elections.
The Guyana Elections Commission has to ensure that it shuts out the noise emanating from sources compromised by self interest. Chief Election Officer, Keith Lowenfield has documented, and the CARICOM team has confirmed, the anomalies, irregularities and voter impersonations. GECOM must now look at the evidence, and do the right thing, and nullify the elections.
The coordinated histrionics from external actors seeking to influence the decision of GECOM and hijack the elections are a collective insult to the people of Guyana and those of us who treasure the historic struggle for independence. Let us understand what is at stake here and refuse this crass and brazen attempt to legitimize fraud as a means of seeking office in our beloved country.