Dear Editor,
I refer to the letter “PPP has embarked on the capture of GECOM” (SN – 31 October, 2024).
The three authors of that letter – APNU+AFC GECOM Commissioners Vincent Alexander, Charles Corbin and Desmond Trotman and – after lobbing accusations at their counterparts from the PPP, accusations since addressed by letter writers representing that party, made the following curious claim:
“The malpractices at GECOM are a daily vindication of all of the reports of the Observer Missions as of 2006. All of the reports called for the reform of GECOM, and specifically mentioned the need for the reconstituting of its membership with the aim of establishing a professional and impartial commission.”
My concern, as someone who has actually read every observer report that came out of those elections, is that I find it baffling that the conclusion above could be made, in public at least, by these three gentlemen. The election observer mission reports covered specific events in 2020, most notably the elections of March 2, and the Recount process that followed. To claim that those reports somehow ‘vindicate’ events that they claim are currently taking place is the sort of brazen, illogical, surreal contortion that we have come to expect from the APNU+AFC and its associates, whether it is arguing that 34 not 33 is the ‘true’ majority in a 65-member National Assembly or whether it is claiming that their still missing Statements of Poll showed them winning the 2020 election.
Every single observer report noted that the elections themselves were smoothly conducted, from the voting process to the counting of the votes. The chaos that subsequently erupted came out of the APNU+AFC refusing to concede that they had legitimately lost the elections, after which they launched a wide-ranging conspiracy to first fraudulently alter the SOPs from Region Four polling stations; followed by spurious legal and procedural challenges to a recount process that Granger had agreed to; and, finally, a last minute desperate attempt via GECOM senior personnel, with the full support of the APNU+AFC Commissioners, to disenfranchise over 100,000 voters to produce yet another fraudulent result giving the Granger incumbency a victory that it did not earn.
Predictably, the Commissioners did not quote any of the reports verbatim because the actual words of those reports indicate that it was the political machinery that they represent that, in collusion with employees of GECOM, sought to rig the process. For example, the European Union observer report notes the circumstances of the original count and the role GECOM employee, Region Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo, played:
“After a transparent, largely uncontested tabulation was completed in most regions, the process abruptly derailed into chaos and confusion amidst obstruction tactics by election officials in decisive Region 4. On 5 March, the Returning Officer (RO) declared results without having tabulated them in the presence of party agents and observers as required by law. After these results were annulled by the Chief Justice as unlawful, GECOM still allowed the same RO to rush through the rest of the tabulation without any transparency in blatant violation of the law and explicit court orders, and to make a second declaration of unverified results on 13 March.
• The results declared by the RO on 13 March are not credible. These results gave APNU+AFC and PPP/C 136,057 and 77,231 votes respectively for the general elections in Region 4, enough for the ruling coalition to overcome the opposition’s advantage in the other regions and take the lead nationally.”
European Union Election Observer Mission, Guyana 2020: Final Report (pg. 7)
During that period, and through the Recount that followed, it was Commissioner Alexander’s position, and we can presume that he spoke on behalf of all three, that all original regional declarations, including the fraudulent representation by Mingo, were in his view legal and hence reflective of the ‘actual’ outcome of the polls. This position has to be taken within the context that at the same time, multiple official representatives of the APNU+AFC – from Carol Smith-Joseph, to Volda Lawrence, to David Patterson – were also on the record as representing as accurate, and reflective of their SOPs, what became known as Mingo Bingo, the Region Four Returning Officer’s fraudulent manipulation and subsequent tabulations of the vote.
Of the four recommendations, out of the full 26, in the EU report that deal explicitly with reform of GECOM, one (Recommendation 1) speaks to a widespread consultation to completely reconstitute the Commission “to ensure a more inclusive representation of the various components of the Guyanese society and political spectrum.” (pgs. 7 and 41). The other three (Recommendations 24, 25, 26 on pgs. 54-56) speak to creating systems to guard against the fraudulent outcome that APNU+AFC sought to impose upon the citizens of this country.
I have repeatedly and deliberately used the word ‘fraudulent’ because that is what another observer report, that of the highly respected Carter Center, used to describe the processes that sought to give a false victory to David Granger, processes that the three APNU+AFC Commissioners in word and deed deemed legal and legitimate:
“Unlike the results announced on March 5 and March 13 that were based on the fraudulent tabulation processes, the recount results observed by CARICOM showed that PPP/C had won the election. The CEO submitted his report on June 13, using the results from the May/June recount in spite of pressure from some in the APNU+AFC coalition who suggested that the report should be based upon the results from March, which showed APNU+AFC winning. His report criticized the recount process, saying, ‘it cannot be ascertained that recount results meet a criteria of fair, credible elections.’”
Carter Center 2020 General and Regional Elections in Guyana Final Report (pg. 96)
It is within this context that the following recommendation was made with regard to reforming the Commission:
“Consideration should be given to adjusting the structure of the GECOM to increase inclusiveness in the election management body and to enhance its independence. In a reformed GECOM, all or most commissioners could be selected based on technical criteria and through consensus mechanisms that guarantee GECOM’s independence and reduce the politicization of the electoral process.”
In sum the observer reports, in relation to GECOM reform, do in fact recommend “the reconstituting of its membership with the aim of establishing a professional and impartial commission” – what these gentlemen seem to be completely oblivious to is that it was the rigging which constituted the primary reason for those recommendations. That sentiment is in fact embodied in the CARICOM Recount Observer Mission Report which noted:
“GECOM, as we indicated, is a creature of the dominant political parties and there is consequently little interest on the part of the Commissioners in ensuring that elections and the electoral environment are conducive to integrity based elections which will reflect the will of the people… We therefor urge the immediate rethinking of the structural organisation of GECOM particularly with respect to selection of the Commissioners.”
Report of the Caricom Observer Team For the Recount of the Guyana March 02, 2020 Elections (pg. 10)
This after the report in necessarily undiplomatic language highlighted the efforts of the political entity that Alexander, Corbin and Trotman represent made in 2020 to derail and delegitimize the Recount process after failing to rig the tabulation of Region Four:
“Indeed, the conduct displayed by some of the observed party agents (APNU/AFC [sic]) was totally unacceptable… The numerous requests for information on serial numbers were so bizarre, that on one observed occasion, an APNU/AFC agent was prepared to query serial numbers on the OLE in a Work Station where no one had voted.”
CARICOM Observer Report (pg. 8)
Yours faithfully,
Ruel Johnson