Dear Editor,
ON Friday, 5th June 2020, the national recount process discovered that in 29 ballot boxes for the lower East Coast Demerara, in strongholds of the PPP/C, that none of the mandatory documents as required by the electoral laws of the country were present in the ballot boxes.

It is significant that this occurred in a large area, involving many boxes accounting for about 6000 votes. This is no small matter in terms of the validation of those votes and the credibility of the 2020 elections. When taken in the context of the other numerous discrepancies, anomalies and irregularities that were uncovered during the recount process, all point to PPP/C rigging, and fraudulent elections.

My concern in this letter is to “interrogate” the PPP/ C’s position for the East Coast fiasco, based on DRO Paul Jaisingh’s narrative that Mingo instructed that at the end of the count on election night, documents were to be placed in a bag instead of the ballot boxes. This narrative by Jaisingh and the PPP/C is an insult to Guyanese intelligence given the known electoral capacity of the opposition PPP/C. We are asked to believe that such instructions coming from a GECOM official, senior or junior, would not have been immediately reported to Freedom House.

And they sat with that information for 3 months saying nothing. Bear in mind that this is a party that boasts about possessing the most efficient election machinery in the English-speaking Caribbean. And knowing full well of the potential damage such instructions would have on their electoral fortunes, they did nothing? I disagree even without direct knowledge on whether or not those instructions were given. My position that the PPPC is lying is based on five decades of involvement in politics in Guyana and that party’s political conduct informs my judgment that the PPP/C and Paul Jaisingh are engaged in manufactured propaganda to cover that party’s fraud on the East Coast. We all know if Mingo or another GECOM official had given those instructions as claimed, that the PPP/C would not have waited to act. They would have done everything in their power to expose this alleged “plot” to rob them of votes. What is in contention in this controversy is not whether the PPP/C would have got the majority of those lower East Coast votes – but how many were valid votes cast by legitimate voters.

I and most Guyanese are not convinced by the narrative of the PPP/C and Mr Paul Jaisingh on this issue, based on that party know track record on election matters. The PPP/C would have turned GECOM into an inferno.

The undeniable truth is that the PPP/C was once again caught in electoral rigging as was demonstrated on hundreds of occasions in the recount process.

Regards
Tacuma Ogunseye