In its quest to invalidate the March 2, 2020 elections, the APNU+AFC coalition has once again published “evidence” which has fallen apart under scrutiny.
On Friday, Rickford Burke, president of the Brooklyn-based Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy (CGID) posted to his Facebook page a series of document which he claimed were death certificates of “persons whose names are registered as voted in Guyana’s March 2 Elections”.
The majority of the certificates are illegible but Burke has also included close ups of three certificates—that of Rampattie Benny, who passed in November 2008, Taramatti Khan, who passed in June 1998, and Lucille Medas, who passed in January 1987.
As Burke’s claim began to be circulated on social media, executive member of The Citizenship Initiative Shaz Ally sought to verify the claim and found that no accusations had been made against Khan and Medas during the recount and while a query about Benny had been made it was found that she had not voted. The assumption made during this process was that the women named in the death certificates were the same woman whose names appeared on the Official List of Electors (OLE). However, since the current OLE was composed following an extensive house-to-house registration exercise in 2008 this is unlikely. A persons who died in 1987 was not alive to be registered in 2008 and therefore is not on the OLE. The same for a person who died in 1998.
However, as part of his attempts to discredit Burke, Ally made public the registration information of individuals who share the names reflected on the death certificates. Consequently, the combined information suggested that Lucille Medas of Ordnance Fort Lands New Housing Scheme, East Canje Berbice died on January 31, 1987. This is the only Lucille Medas on the OLE. This action significantly distressed her family, which sought to have the matter corrected.
Medas’ niece took to her own Facebook page to let the world know that her aunt was alive and well. The woman’s daughter -in-law made a similar post and her sister commented that not only was she well but that they were currently sitting next to each other. The posts immediately became the centre of vitriolic attacks from coalition supporters and the party issued a statement claiming that the identification of Medas was a PPP/C tactic to discredit the coalition. “No observation of death was made, however despite this fact, the author dishonestly accused the APNU+AFC of claiming that the person would have died and voted,” it stressed.
Sunday Stabroek reached out to Medas and her family but they declined to speak for fear of reprisal. They, however, confirmed that Medas is alive.
This newspaper also made contact with the nine other registered electors bearing the last name Medas. Three of these persons reported that they had a deceased relative named Lucille Medas but each noted that their relative was not registered to vote and therefore could not have had a ballot cast on their behalf.
One individual, who identified herself as the daughter of a late Lucille Medas was even able to say that her mother has been dead for the length of time reflected in the death certificate though she could positively identify the certificate as her mothers. Throughout the National Recount, the coalition claimed to have evidence in its possession to support the allegation that countless instances of dead persons being recorded as voting exclusively in the opposition’ strongholds and countless instances of persons who have long migrated from Guyana and who were not in Guyana on Election Day being recorded as voting. To date no credible evidence has been produced to back up the claims by the coalition.
