Dear Editor,
The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) deliberately disregarded Mr Freddie Kissoon’s first accusation against the Commission on the issue of its response to the People Progressive Party’s request for recounts. Optimistically, we had hoped that Mr Kissoon, as a person who would be familiar with scholarly research, would have educated himself about the law pertaining to this matter, or that some kind friend, not lastly practitioners of the law, would have provided him with relevant legal illumination. Unfortunately, this seems not to have materialized, since Mr Kissoon has returned (KN, December 21 to the issue in his letter to the editor titled ‘The vibes are flowing in the opposite direction.’
Mr Kissoon may consider that it is his right as a journalist to be selective in identifying issues which he feels could be used to damn GECOM. But in so doing, he should not depart from the basic journalistic principle of balanced reporting. Mr Kissoon should be reminded of Mr Rashleigh Jackson’s advice which posits that while everyone is entitled to his/her own opinion, no one is entitled to his/her own facts. Had he not been guilty of such a departure, Mr Kissoon might have been able to guide himself in addressing the issue of the PPP/C’s call for recounts.
Having noted the foregoing, it is imperative that we set the record straight. In so doing, we will also respond to several other matters concerning GECOM which Mr Kissoon penned in the said article and in his missive titled ‘Dr. Surujbally acts as if he is constitutionally irremovable.’
GECOM has always been, and will continue to be, compliant with the relevant laws governing its operations. Section 84 (2) of the Representation of the People Act, Chapter 1:03, provides for a party agent to request the returning officer of the district to conduct a final count of the votes count by any presiding officer by 12:00 hours on the day following Election Day. This was followed in the case of the PPP/C’s call for recounts in Districts 3 and 4. Accordingly, it was mandatory for GECOM to respond positively to the calls from agents of the PPP/C for recounts of ballots.
It is essential at this point that while Mr Kissoon is misinformed that “the results were not yet known,” the party agents who were present at the respective polling stations would have been in possession of authentic copies of the relevant Statements of Poll (SoPs), hence all of the contesting parties who had presence in the form of agents at the polling stations would have known the results of the elections accordingly.
As regards Mr. Kissoon’s reference to the mention in the Organisation of American States’ (OAS) Observer Team’s Preliminary Report that “they say unauthorized persons entering GECOM with Statements of Poll”, here is what the Report states:- “The OAS teams stationed at GECOM’s tabulation center in Georgetown observed at least two envelopes containing statements of poll being delivered by an unaccredited and unescorted individual.” In this regard, Mr Kissoon is invited to accept that Mr Deolall Ramlall, the Returning Officer for District 4 has made it absolutely clear that the movement of Statements of Poll from his office to the GECOM Command Centre was done under police escort. Mr Ramlall has given the assurance that there were isolated cases (2 envelopes) in which Statements of Poll were returned to him for minor inconsequential corrections, after which they were returned to the Command Centre via GECOM staff. Under such circumstances, as was the case with the two Statements in question, there was no need to use police escorts as the Statements would have already been documented as received at the Command Centre.
In fact, in this particular case, it was the RO-4 himself (not an “unaccredited person”) who delivered the envelopes to one of his staff at the door, before he rushed back to his office at Thomas Lands. Unfortunately, those envelopes have now metamorphosed into an issue seemingly with the objective of placing the entire integrity of the elections in jeopardy.
While GECOM is aware of the challenge by the Alliance For Change (AFC) for an additional seat at the 2006 General and Regional Elections, contrary to what Mr Kissoon’s posited, the Commission never acknowledged any seat mistake whatsoever. The Commission would have correctly advised that any challenge to the validity of the elections be made through the court under the National Assembly (Validity of Elections Act). GECOM had conducted an internal investigation, verified by external calculations, and could not determine that the AFC had in fact won an additional seat to those which were declared.
GECOM was never in possession of any money at any time to share out to any political party. To say that “GECOM shared out a hundred million dollars of Scrutineer money to the PNC (and $150M to the PPP/C) and decide against the AFC is an outright lie, which can only be interpreted as odious and malicious.
The Chairman of GECOM never used any casting vote to retain any Returning Officer, who according to Mr. Kissoon, “had committed an illegal act…”
As regards the constitutionality of the Office of the Chairman of GECOM, the highly suggestive title headlining Mr Kissoon’s letter deserves the advice that he consult the Constitution (Amendment) Act No. 2 of 2000 which deals with the appointment of the chairman and members of the commission, and Article 255 of the constitution which deals with a constitutional chairman’s removal from office.
Yours faithfully,
Vishnu Persaud
Public Relations Officer
