IT should not come as any surprise to keen observers of the developments since the March 2 elections that GECOM’s Chief Elections Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield has concluded that the elections did not pass the credibility test. As this publication reported yesterday, “The Chief Elections Officer submitted his report on the national recount to Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Justice (Ret’d) Claudette Singh, and the six elections commissioners — Vincent Alexander, Sase Gunraj, Desmond Trotman, Robeson Benn, Charles Corbin and Bibi Shadick –- on Saturday. The report comprises a tabulation of the votes that were recounted during a period of 34 days (May 6-June 8), and a summary of Observation Reports for each of the 10 electoral districts.”
The CEO observed that due to widespread irregularities and anomalies, he could only verify 185,000 of the 460,000 votes cast. This means that approximately 60 per cent of the votes have been contaminated by what appears to be a systematic operation by agents of the PPP working for GECOM on election day. This is by any stretch of the imagination a massive conspiracy by a party which has tried every trick in the book to cover its tracks. From its insistence that only the Region Four boxes should be recounted to the stubborn objection to an audit of the votes in the boxes, the PPP tried to frustrate the kind of report produced by the CEO.
Throughout the recount process the APNU+AFC kept reporting its findings to GECOM and the public. But, the PPP, much of the media and the foreign observers kept pretending that these findings never existed. Despite the unambiguous objective of the recount order, they kept pretending that the recount was a mere tabulation of the votes in the boxes. Since they obviously knew the mischief that lay behind the scenes, this was a deliberate effort to hide the truth.
Now that the CEO has formalised what they sought to suppress, there is a lot of weeping and gnashing of teeth. They claim that he has overstepped his remit; that his opinion runs against the grain. This publication wishes to disagree. We continue to argue that if the recount order set itself the task of determining the credibility of the elections, then the CEO’s report is bound to answer that question. And that is precisely what he has done.
The immediate effect is two-fold. First, it forces the PPP to withdraw its bogus declaration that it has won the election. If anything, it is the coalition which should be celebrating. But the latter has refrained from such reckless behavior and has instead insisted that it is GECOM that has the final call. The second effect is that some of the hostile media have been forced to come down from their high horse and acknowledge that there is more to this process than the PPP’s narrative. When the dust settles, this institution has a lot of soul-searching to do. Never in Guyana’s modern history have the private media been so overtly partisan in its coverage of an election.
The report is now with the commission. It is their responsibility to treat with it within the letter and spirit of the recount order. It is our considered opinion that the commissioners must consider the report on its merit and not try to ignore or sidestep its central findings. The two choices before them seem to be the strong case that the coalition has prevailed based on the credible votes identified and the even stronger case that the elections are too contaminated to form the basis for the declaration of the winner.
The other factor that has not come into play yet is the CARICOM observers’ report. As we write this editorial it has not been shared with the commission. We know that PM Ralph Gonsalves has been accused of trying to influence that report through his very strident utterings three days ago. Here is hoping that the observation team paid no attention to the prime minister and brought to bear on the report the professionalism and impartiality that are expected from them. President Granger and his coalition have repeatedly stressed the importance of their report.
Whatever happens in the coming days, we have come to a critical juncture in this long journey from March 2. We understand the frustrations that may have crept into the national consciousness, but we urge that this matter is worth the wait. Too much is at stake,
