Dear Editor,
Forty years and one day ago, the people of Guyana witnessed the assassination of one of the country’s greatest sons, Dr. Walter Rodney, the inspirational voice of the WPA. The unmistakeable hands of PNC Founder Leader Forbes Burnham, through the instrumentality of the Guyana Defence Force, were found on the figurative trigger. What caused Burnham to proceed to such an extreme measure was that his series of rigged elections had been exposed internationally, much to his embarrassment. With the security of unchallenged power, Burnham and his PNC pursued policies which ruined the economy of the most resource-rich country of the Caribbean. It required the support of the Americans and the British to facilitate the return of democracy in Guyana. It required the intervention of the IMF, the World Bank and other donor agencies and countries to restore viability to the Guyana economy.
We seem destined for another assassination. This time not of a single or a few persons, but of a nation, of democracy, of the right to vote and to have that vote counted. In an act of extreme cynicism, historian David Granger and wannabe heir to the Burnham curse, chose the anniversary of Burnham’s assassination of Rodney to make his own mark on history.
In the culmination of a move by Granger four years ago to hijack the elections machinery by the unlawful installation of former judge James Patterson as the head of GECOM, the Chief Election Officer Keith Lowenfield gave Granger his wish by declaring that he could not ascertain that “the recount results meet criteria of fair, credible elections”. Here is a man who has been employed by GECOM for approximately two decades, who has supervised the spending of around fifteen billion dollars ($15 billion), admitting that he is incapable of carrying out his basic function. His incompetence however has implications beyond $15 billion. It will cost this country its democracy.
From the top, there was Vincent Alexander who steered through the recount Order that made APNU+AFC agents into unsworn witnesses and Lowenfield the one-man tribunal. And there was the Deputy Elections Officer brought in by Patterson to carry out the `work’ from the inside with able assistance from Aubrey Norton and others from the outside. Of course, Lowenfield and his deputy were not short of cues from Granger and his paid defilers of democracy.
A cursory read of Lowenfield’s report could easily have been taken from Granger’s hymnbook. Just one night before Lowenfield chose to submit his report – he was working on it for an almost forty biblical days – Granger had told a radio interview that there were 7,929 instances of irregularities – approximately three per polling station – and that those directly affected the validity of 257,173 votes or more that 56% of the votes cast in the elections! This is precisely Lowenfield’s line as the following extract from his report shows:
“A total of eighty-six boxes stand affected due to a total of three hundred and thirty-eight anomalies and/or alleged voter impersonation. In other words, approximately 75% of all votes cast for general elections are associated with boxes that stand to be impacted due to either anomalies and/or voter impersonation. Specifically, 3% of the votes cast were impacted by anomalies, while 55% were impacted by voter impersonation, and 17% impacted by both anomalies/irregularities and voter impersonation”.
Lowenfield thinks that his outlandish findings that 56 out of every 100 votes have been tainted by impersonation are more credible than the outstanding work on Elections Day by all the GECOM officials, APNU+AFC officials, party officials and domestic and international observers. According to Lowenfield, APNU+AFC has 125,000 untainted votes while the PPP/C has 56,000 votes! In a mathematical act of insanity, Lowenfield is disenfranchising about six out of every ten voters. He was Granger’s man and like Gregory Smith did for Burnham, he has worked beyond the call of duty. Mingo is now the lesser of two mischief makers. He made the APNU+AFC the winner via a fraudulent declaration of Region 4. Lowenfield has made the APNU+AFC the winner based on the entire country. Based on Lowenfield’s report, his APNU+AFC actually earned more untainted votes than the PPP/C: 125,000 to 56,000. He has disenfranchised 60 per cent of the voters in the elections. Lowenfield was part of the Mingo fraud by elevating to the Commission Mingo’s fraudulent Region 4 declaration to which the world was exposed. Mingo’s place in the hall of infamy remains assured, now, Lowenfield has joined him, unmasking the real deal.
To show his unashamed bias, Lowenfield accepted without evidence or inquiry, every single allegation or challenge made by the APNU+AFC during the recount. At the same time, his report does not even acknowledge that the other contesting parties had objected to or rebutted many of those spurious and unfounded allegations. In fact, there are reports that many GECOM officials refused to include on the Observation Reports the rebuttals to the APNU+AFC’s made-up allegations.
If GECOM Chair Claudette Singh does not intervene to stop Lowenfield’s inchoate attempt at assassinating elections in Guyana, Guyana will suffer from the absence of free and fair elections perhaps for decades to come. Unless she and her commissioners act to reverse Lowenfield’s finding, June 13’s claim for being a day of national disgrace in Guyana is doubly assured.
Yours faithfully,
Christopher Ram
