Dear Editor
ON Election Day, Monday, March 2, 2020, operatives of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) allegedly attempted to commit election fraud and violence. This attempt to engender destabilisation was foiled. Moreover, 12 men were arrested in Alberttown, Georgetown, near polling stations at the St. Ambrose Primary School.
In the 1997 elections, PPP agents were accused of changing vote tallies on SOPs. This triggered an international Commission of Inquiry. The 1997 elections results were subsequently vitiated due to constitutional breaches by then Supreme Court Justice Claudette Singh, who now heads the Elections Commission.
The men were caught with guns, ammunition and bulletproof vests, and were travelling in vehicles with fake licence plates. The arms, ammunition and a vehicle were seized by the police. PPP agents accosted, harassed and intimidated voters in some areas. They allegedly followed voters, took their photographs and videotaped their movement to and from polling stations. These are known voter-suppression tactics. The Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy (CGID) condemns these illegal acts and calls for a comprehensive, criminal investigation of the PPP’s Election Day activities.
Surveillance video captured the 12 men, whom police detained at different times in the company of senior PPP officials on Monday in the vicinity of polling stations around Georgetown. This development is worrisome and reminiscent of the past. On April 9, 2001, eyewitnesses informed the police that they saw a security officer located at the top floor, rear exit of Freedom House, the PPP’s Robb Street, Georgetown, headquarters, fire into a crowd of protesters, killing 43 year-old Donna McKinnon. No one was charged for McKinnon’s murder.
Meanwhile, Guyanese law enforcement and immigration officials on Monday allegedly detained and deported Brent Kartcher, a 73-year-old Texas oil executive, Libyan Marwan Al-Ayed and Vadim Kyrillov of Austria. The trio arrived in Guyana last Saturday in a private jet. They were taken into custody at the Georgetown Marriott Hotel where several PPP operatives and expatriates have been frequenting for meetings. CGID appeals for calm in the face of obvious incitement of violence and calls on the Guyana Police Force to take swift action against breaches of the peace, security and the law.
Regards
Rickford Burke
Caribbean-Guyana Institute for Democracy (C-GID)
