As the end game draws closer in these torturous elections, the role of the caretaker President Mr Granger in this malign campaign to thwart the will of the people becomes clearer and clearer. For all of his sanctimonious prating and declarations of constitutional adherence, he is now fully aware of the attempts to rig the March 2nd general elections so that he could have another term in office. He is completely exposed now. There is no place to hide. There were many points of departure for Mr Granger to do the right and honourable thing and concede defeat. The first, of course, would have been the truth of the Statements of Poll (SoPs) for all 2,339 polling stations which would have been assiduously gathered and computed by the coalition on the night of March 2nd and morning of March 3rd. These would have made it clear that the coalition had lost and the appropriate and statesmanlike response at that point would have been to concede.
Instead, Mr Granger’s coalition banished their SoPs into a damning and telling exile and succeeded in getting the badly compromised Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to do the same. This was not the behaviour of a winner. It was the behaviour of a loser and worse yet one that had begun scheming to steal the elections from the people. It is reprehensible that in their conspiracy to rig the elections, persons within APNU+AFC and GECOM have sought to impugn the professional conduct of thousands of polling day workers when the actual riggers comprise a handful within the GECOM Secretariat. One of the most outrageous lies which the coalition and its supporters must be held accountable for was the claim that thousands of votes of the Disciplined Services had been invalidated for the want of a polling station stamp.
The most recent point at which Mr Granger could have done the right thing and spared the country from further agony was the presentation of the report of the three-person CARICOM observer team which bravely and sedulously undertook the scutinising of the recount and tabulation of votes over five weeks in oppressive conditions. It was Mr Granger who had agreed with Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo that there be a recount of votes during a mediatory meeting with the Chair of CARICOM, Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley and other regional heads of government who had journeyed to Guyana when the elections crisis brewed. Notwithstanding the fact that one of Mr Granger’s own candidates had caused the aborting of the first mission to undertake the recount, CARICOM persevered and dispatched a second team which began its work on May 6th. It was Mr Granger himself who as recently as May 17th anointed this team as the most “legitimate interlocutor” on the Guyana situation and professed confidence in CARICOM’s integrity and ability. Yet, after the observers issued their magisterial report on June 15 declaring that the recount provided a valid basis for the declaration of the result there was complete silence from Mr Granger. How utterly disgraceful and duplicitous of Mr Granger. His attitude was grossly disrespectful of the CARICOM intervention and also betrayed the nefarious intentions of him and his coalition. Perhaps becoming aware of the findings of the report, Mr Granger convened a briefing with select reporters at State House on June 14, the day before the report’s release and incomprehensibly lent support to unsubstantiated allegations made by the coalition’s agents at the recount. That could well have been a pre-emptive attempt to undermine the CARICOM report. Where does Mr Granger stand on this report? Will this same reckless disregard for his solemn commitments be exhibited by Mr Granger to a final declaration by the GECOM Chair, Justice (ret’d) Claudette Singh? After all, Mr Granger has said on several occasions that he will abide by “any” declaration made by Ms Singh.
So we come now to the impending declaration by Ms Singh. The process has to await the conclusion of the Caribbean Court of Justice’s (CCJ) consideration on Wednesday of an application to appeal last Monday’s decision of the Guyana Court of Appeal which unconvincingly inserted itself into the elections circus by suggesting that the word “vote” in Article 177 2(b) of the constitution required a differentiation between valid and invalid votes. The shaky and unpersuasive judgments by the majority of the panel provided oxygen for the now infamous submission by the Chief Election Officer, Mr Keith Lowenfield who took it upon himself to cast aside more than 115,000 votes from the March 2nd general elections while concocting hocus-pocus figures that purported to show a victory for the incumbent – the latest of a series of attempts to rig the March 2nd general elections. It should be clear. Mr Lowenfield has betrayed his responsibility to the electorate by canning over 115,000 votes. He has no right or basis to do this and his report must be immediately rubbished. What was also exceptionable about the report was that it was in complete defiance of the instruction of the GECOM Chair that it be based on the recount figure. Further, Mr Lowenfield had the temerity to state publicly on Friday that he was in compliance with constitutional provisions. The law is clear. Mr Lowenfield is under the complete control of GECOM and once instructed he must comply. To avoid further disobedience and disorder in the final steps of the elections process, GECOM must immediately remove Mr Lowenfield from his post and depute someone in his stead to submit the recount figures which show a loss for the incumbent.
Whether or not the CCJ asserts jurisdiction in this matter on Wednesday and irrespective of any decision it may make, the just and proper conclusion of the election remains in the hands of Chairman Singh. She must first ensure that the recount result is delivered to the GECOM commissioners and then vote in favour of its certification. She owes that to the country considering how the March 2nd General and Regional Election was allowed to degenerate into such farce that a result is still to be presented 119 days later. Order in the electoral process must be restored.
As it continues to flagrantly mislead its supporters that it has won the elections, concerns continue to grow that no matter the presentation of a final report and certification of the recount result by GECOM, the incumbent administration will refuse to leave office. Its behaviour since losing the December 21, 2018 motion of no confidence certainly provides fodder for that view. Mr Granger and his retinue should not delude themselves into thinking that they will get away with that.