Dear Editor,
There has been recent extensive publication reported in the press of the claims made by former President David Granger in a libel suit he has filed against me, as well as the Stabroek News, the Kaieteur News and the Guyana Times, as a result of Mr. Granger’s Attorney-at-Law, Mr. Roysdale Forde, filing an objection against the libel suit being heard by Justice Navindra Singh. At the hearing, Justice Gino Persaud pointed out that the law in Guyana does not allow for a litigant to “judge” or “forum” shop.
While the hearing of the libel suit has now been postponed until the matter with regards to Mr. Granger’s attempt to change the Judge is settled, I believe it is my right to respond, at least briefly, to Mr. Granger’s claims against me, which have now been extensively published in the media.
Serving in my capacity as an Accre-dited Observer for the Private Sector Commission at the beginning of the GECOM count of the March 2nd Elec-tions for District 4, I was a direct witness of what took place at the Guyana Elec-tions Commission when Clairmont Mingo attempted to present a tabulation not in accordance with the Statements of Poll for District 4, without even completing the District 4 count, and the events which followed.
Mingo’s attempt was made in the presence of the entire Diplomatic Community and all of the Observer Missions, local and international, and representatives of the major contesting parties. Not surprisingly, it resulted in an uproar of protest, which later, David Granger was to inaccurately describe as an invasion of GECOM by the PPP/C leadership.
All of these events have been well documented in our domestic media and internationally and in the Final Reports of the various election Observer Missions (OM) for the 2020 Elections.
At the time, I was astonished at what I was witnessing and was to describe at a PSC Press Conference (13th March, 2020), reported in the Kaieteur News of 14th March, 2020, as “a deliberate attempt to rig an election”. My exact words were “I have to say this, that in all my life and career, in and out of politics in this country, I have never seen such a barefaced, ugly and deliberate attempt to rig an election”.
At that Press Conference I put on record what I had seen. Because of my long experience in political campaigning and in the conduct of General Elections in the country, I felt certain that both the PPP/C and the APNU+AFC Coalition had in their possession, the Statements of Poll of all 10 election Districts, in which case, they would have tabulated the results and knew the winner of the elections.
It is significant that the Senior Counsel of the recently concluded Commission of Inquiry into the 2020 Elections, Sophia Chote, observed that: “I don’t think it is unreasonable for this commission to infer that after the close of polls on the second, perhaps by the next day, the two juggernauts would have had the totals”, she was, of course, referring to the APNU+AFC and the PPP/C. She further offered the explanation that this is “why things then went” left after the results were known.
It had also become obvious to me that, judging from the attitude and behaviour of the APNU+AFC representatives at the District 4 count, the activities of Mingo and Lowenfied had their full support. It became obvious that, from the beginning the only beneficiaries of what we were witnessing would be the APNU+AFC Coalition, at the expense of the PPP/C.
It had become obvious to me that the events unfolding at GECOM which I was witnessing, to first delay, and then to misrepresent the District 4 count, were because the APNU+AFC Coalition had in their possession, the published Statements of Poll of the election results, that they, therefore, knew the real results of District 4, that they knew that they had lost the elections, could not live with it and needed time to change the outcome.
Had it not been for an Injunction served on GECOM and a decision of the Chief Justice obliging the Chairman of GECOM to once again continue the count of District 4, using the Statements of Poll, David Granger would have been improperly re-installed as President.
We know that, in spite of the Chief Justice’s ruling, Mingo and Lowenfield continued to present an inaccurate count, again, witnessed by me alongside all of the international Observers.
We know that political and international Observer pressure persuaded the Chair-man of GECOM to resort to a Recount of the elections and, we know, that David Granger himself, acting in his capacity as President, in collaboration with the PPP/C General Secretary, Bharrat Jagdeo, had invited Prime Minister, Mia Mottley, to lead a CARICOM team to Guyana with the agreement of all the contesting parties to observe the count. This was as a result of the Aide Memoire which they signed.
We were also aware that the subsequent visit of the CARICOM team was given little or no cooperation from the GECOM officials, resulting in their rapid departure from Guyana. Their departure was almost immediately followed by an Injunction filed by Ulita Grace Moore, an APNU+AFC election candidate, attempting to block GECOM from holding a Recount which, by then, had been ordered by the Court.
In the meantime, the APNU+AFC hired an American Public Relations Company, JJ&B LLC, to present a totally false narrative in Washington DC in a futile attempt to reverse the conclusion of the international community that the APNU+AFC had set out to steal the elections. On checking the Dossier filed in Washington by JJ&B LLC, they list the name of their “Foreign Principal”, that is their client, as the Government of Guyana.
When Joseph Harmon sought to deny this publicly, it was either that Mr. Harmon was not being forthcoming or that JJ&B LLC had submitted a false Registration of their client to the US Government, which they would not have risked doing.
I personally found it unbelievable that David Granger and, indeed, Sandra Granger, his wife, who were people that I knew well and “regarded with some affection as friends”, would lend their name to the narrative being published by the PR Company in Washington. That is why I made the appeal to Granger, in a published letter, to “come to his senses” and allow the Recount to quickly take place.
I made that appeal with every good intention and without any malice towards Granger, whom I believed must have been acting on very bad advice.
Shortly after visiting the GECOM Headquarters at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre where the Recount was proceeding, Mr. Granger held a Press Conference. He was asked whether, in his view, the elections were credible? His answer was evasive: he said that this would be determined by GECOM. He was asked why the government had refused entry to Guyana to the Carter Center for the Recount? He offered COVID restrictions as a reason while, at the same time, allowing the CARICOM Delegation to enter the country. He was asked whether the Coalition would accept the results from the Recount? Again, his answer was evasive, answering that “whatever declaration comes out from the Chairman of GECOM would be regarded as legitimate”.
In all of his responses, throughout the interregnum of the election delay, Mr. Granger never once recognized that Mingo had declared a grossly inaccurate election result, that the election process on election day was credible and that none of the APNU+AFC party agents had raised any objections and, he, never once, admitted to whether or not the Statements of Poll were in his party’s possession nor whether he had seen them.
Two days before the Recount was concluded and in his capacity as both President and APNU+AFC leader, on 6th June, 2022, Mr. Granger addressed the nation. He, in that address, chose to discredit the results of the Recount by echoing his party claims of “numerous reports of irregularities…unstamped ballots, deceased and migrant voters”, according to him, a deliberate “pattern of manipulation of the electoral process”, none of which, claims had been supported with evidence ever presented to GECOM nor the courts.
At the conclusion of the Recount, the APNU+AFC lawyers again resorted to the courts, claiming that the Recount Order, which Mr. Granger had previously agreed to respect and had invited CARICOM to witness, was itself illegal and argued that the results of the entire Recount should be rejected. As I write this, APNU+AFC’s lawyers are still attempting to overturn the results of a free and fair election.
Not only did APNU+AFC’s lawyers go to court in an attempt to throw out the Recount results, but went further to argue that the grossly inaccurate Lowenfield declaration of the election results which had been held in abeyance by the Chair-man of GECOM, should be recognized.
Are we expected to ignore the fact that, just three days after the March 2nd elections were concluded, on 5th March, 2020, the highly respected international news agency, Reuters, reported: “Diplomats and foreign observers on Thursday questioned preliminary results of Guyana’s presidential election as incumbent David Granger claimed victory and the opposition denounced fraud, setting up a showdown in the oil-rich South American nation”.
On 6th March, 2020, the next day, the joint Heads of Mission of the Embassy of the United States of America, H.E Ambassador Sarah-Ann Lynch, the British High Commissioner, H.E Greg Quinn, the Canadian High Commissioner, H.E Lilian Chatterjee and the Delegation of the European Union H.E Ambassador Fernando Ponz-Canto, expressed “deep concern over credible allegations of electoral fraud which may influence the results of this election” and they called upon President Granger to “avoid a transition of government which we believe would be unconstitutional as it would be based on a vote tabulation process that lacked credibility and transparency”.
In fact, Mr. Granger did exactly the opposite. Instead of heeding this call, Mr. Granger’s government held the nation in travail, forcing an election recount until the true results of the March 2020 elections were announced and the PPP/C took office on 2nd August, 2020.
I have nothing but the highest respect and regard for David Granger, but the evidence is incontrovertible and I sincerely and truly believe he could have done something to avert this sordid episode.
Yours sincerely,
Kit Nascimento
