Six weeks after the March 2nd general elections, a crisis triggered by a rigging attempt in GECOM to hand victory to the incumbent APNU+AFC rumbles on with the way forward resting heavily with the Chair of the electoral body, Justice (retired) Claudette Singh.
The GECOM Chair is this week expected to convene a meeting at which a decision will be taken on the modalities for the recount of the March 2nd elections and how long it will take even as the stalemate intersects with the COVID-19 pandemic which has killed six persons here and sickened dozens of others. Justice Singh has been heavily criticized for not lifting a finger to interdict the fraud attempt which has uncoiled a series of events that has prevented the declaration of a winner and the swearing in of a President.
In the meanwhile, the holder of the presidency, David Granger, who had been performing the functions of a caretaker prior to the elections, has not uttered a word of concern that the count for District Four might have been rigged in his favour. Instead, his supporters, notably Director-General in the Ministry of the Presidency, Joseph Harmon have been playing up the prospect of a swearing in of Granger for weeks now.
The recount controversy has its genesis in fictitious figures for District Four – the richest number of votes – which had been presented by the Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo. The concocted figures have been exposed by agents for a number of political parties who were present on two occasions when spreadsheets that were introduced under his direction presented figures which bore no resemblance to Statements of Poll (SoPs). More importantly, the spreadsheets sought to increase the number of votes allotted to APNU+AFC. Local and international observer groups have also taken note of his numbers and declared them not to be credible.
Mingo’s questionable numbers and his determination to declare them on March 5th at the High and Hadfield Sts GECOM office despite an uproar by opposition parties led the PPP/C to seek an injunction against the results fearing that there could be a hasty swearing in of Granger.
When the substantive case was heard, Chief Justice Roxane George ruled that Mingo’s declaration was null and void as he had not complied with the process set out in law. Undeterred, Mingo then proceeded with a second equally egregious declaration which led to the filing of contempt of court proceedings against him. It was while these proceedings were being heard on March 14 at the brand new Diamond/Grove court that word came of a CARICOM-brokered initiative agreed to by Granger and Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo for a recount of all the regions.
Despite a team of high-level CARICOM officials arriving for the recount, the initiative swiftly disintegrated when APNU+AFC candidate Ulita Moore challenged the recount and secured an injunction from Justice Franklyn Holder in the High Court.
The collapse of the initiative led to a strong statement from CARICOM Chair, Barbadian Prime Minister, Mia Mottley that there were forces here who did not want a count of the votes. In the meanwhile lawyers for the PPP challenged Justice Holder’s decision at the Full Court and secured a decision in their favour when Justices George and Nareshwar Harnanan ruled that Justice Holder did not have locus standi in the matter. Moore would later fail at the Guyana Court of Appeal in her attempt to have the injunction restored against the recount.
The GECOM Chair will now face voting with one side or the other on the deeply divided Commission on a recount proposal as the country anxiously awaits a final result. Based on a literal reading of a proposal by opposition-appointed commissioner, Robeson Benn, Chief Election Officer, Keith Lowenfield came up with a widely lampooned timeframe of 156 days for the recount. The opposition-appointed commissioners have since tendered their own proposal that would see a recount in two weeks.
Sanctions
In the backdrop of charges that she let the process run out of control, the GECOM Chair now faces the challenge of bringing the elections to a conclusion with a fair and verifiable result. Her task has become even more critical as Western countries have explicitly warned that any illegal swearing in of a President will have grave repercussions which has been interpreted to mean sanctions and other impositions. The warnings have come from a variety of US, UK, Canadian and European Union officials. In particular, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has issued several of these warnings.
Pleas for a credible result in District Four leading to a final declaration of the result have also come from a variety of high-level figures including Sir Shridath Ramphal, former Foreign Minister Rudy Insanally, retired Guyana Defence Force Major General, Joe Singh and a slew of others.
Local organisations such as the Guyana Bar Association, Transparency Institute Guyana Inc and the Private Sector Commission which fielded observers here have also called for a swift and credible conclusion to the elections process and the declaration of a winner.
A fully empowered government is seen as pivotal at this point with Guyana now caught in the tentacles of the COVID-19 pandemic and staring down the barrels of a collapse in the global price for oil. A budget also has to be presented for 2020.
