Dear Editor,
I refer to Justice Claudette Singh’s letter in your edition of 27/10/2021 `Mandatory injunction granted by the Court against GECOM and CEO impeded my intervention’. The Chair of GECOM sought to defend herself against criticisms by Professor Barrow-Giles and Dr. Ronnie Yearwood of the UWI that GECOM had an overriding role to play in the developments that took place following the March 2nd polls. GECOM, they allege, had enormous powers but was unable to assert its powers (SN 23/10/2021). Justice Singh claimed in her letter that mandatory injunctions prevented GECOM from acting. Justice Singh is right, but that is not what happened in the early stages of the attempted rigging when it could have been stopped.
On the evening of March 4, during the counting process of votes for Region 4 by Returning Officer Mingo, he abandoned the counting from the Statements of Poll, as required by the Representation of the People Act, and began to count the votes based on a spreadsheet, which was totally unlawful. Justice Singh was in the building but took no steps, as far as anyone knows, to stop this brazen attempt to rig the results of the elections. She had to have known what was going as she was in the upper floor of the building. But Justice Singh was incommunicado. Pandemonium broke out. Police invaded the building which was cleared. A commissioner, Sase Gunraj, who had every right to remain in the building, was expelled. The Statements of Poll were left unprotected.
The counting by way of spreadsheet was concluded and an unlawful result, counter signed by the Chair of the PNCR, Volda Lawrence, was declared. All of this occurred before any injunction was granted and without any public or known intervention by Justice Singh. To this day, Justice Singh has given no indication that she did anything to stop the March 4 attempt to rig the results of the elections. Political parties’ representatives in the building saw none. Her letter is silent on this episode.
After court orders were granted against these attempts, the counting was moved to GECOM headquarters. Mr. Mingo resumed the count on the basis of the SOPs but displayed the results on a dirty bedsheet which were not visible, or barely visible, to political parties’ representatives. There were protests. Another declaration was made by Mr. Mingo which the Chief Election Officer then certified and sought to have GECOM declare as the official election result. This result also turned out to be flawed, giving APNU+AFC a rigged victory. This second attempt at rigging the Region 4 results also saw no known or reported intervention by Justice Singh.
The public assumes that Justice Singh, by her silence, did nothing to stop her officers.
Her letter in SN, which is her first public communication about the events, and an attempt to justify her paralysis in the face of two brazen attempts to rig the results of the elections, falls far short. She had this opportunity to say something about the counting of the Region 4 votes, but did not. We remain in the dark. The public only saw and heard from Justice Singh when she followed in lockstep with then President Granger’s agreement to a recount, which she supported.
Yours faithfully,
(Name and address supplied)
