IT is now public record that Justice (Ret’d) Claudette Singh has endured a quantity of threats against her character and her person. It says something about us as a society when the first woman to assume the office of Chair of the Guyana Elections Commission is subjected to veiled, albeit vitriolic, jabs at her professionalism and her integrity which, considering the possible tensions brewing beneath the surface, could open the floodgates for the unthinkable.

Quite recently, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, Gail Teixeira, called out the “bullyism and intimidation tactics” of Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton and operatives of the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC), which endured since the 2020 General and Regional Elections (GRE). The political opposition has never taken to condemn the threats of violence against Justice Singh, including the threats against her life.

A pillar of strength, the GECOM Chair, the first woman to hold that position, remains unfazed by the threats against her in the dispatch of her public duty. Her service to the growth of this nation spans decades, but this cannot be the gratitude that befalls her. In 2020, media reports quoted Justice Singh as eerily saying: “There is a bounty on my head from Friday night. I am not afraid because death is inevitable, and I believe in God.”
It should be recalled also that during the daunting 2020 elections process, several individuals and groups had signed an unofficial petition aimed at the removal of Justice Singh as GECOM’s Chairperson. This was days before former President David Granger had conceded that his incumbent APNU+AFC coalition had lost the election.

It begs the question of what was the expectation of the agents of the petition when the removal of GECOM’s Chairperson at the time would have prevented the official declaration of the results, and deepened the already-existing constitutional crisis in the country at the time. These demands cannot be in the best interest of the country.

Repeatedly, President Granger said during the elections cycle that he has no plan to remove Justice Singh from her post, according to another media report, but other members of his party had taken a more hardened line. “She should do the honourable thing and step aside for Guyana’s sake. The recount produced fraudulent results,” one prominent coalition member said in 2020.

In a further desperate attempt, this time weaponising access to legitimate institutions, three private criminal charges were filed against the GECOM Chair for three separate incidents, including a claim that she disregarded the advice of GECOM’s legal officer and the Chief Parliamentary Counsel that the recount of votes of the March 2nd elections was unlawful.

Mr Anil Nandlall, then part of the opposition People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), had said: “These private criminal charges are the latest installment of abuse of the judicial system with hopelessly misconceived and vexatious litigation, this time, in the criminal jurisdiction by the APNU+AFC, as they continue their relentless efforts to derail the electoral process.

“There is no doubt that they intend to bully and intimidate the Chairperson of GECOM. It is a frontal political ploy to intimidate an autonomous, constitutional officeholder in the hope that they can compromise her integrity, to produce corrupt election results to their liking.”

The memory of the threats is still fresh. It could be recalled that in July 2020, an activist of the APNU was criminally charged for threatening to kill Justice Singh. What was even more sinister and provoking to the fragile social fabric of Guyana is that the activist of the APNU had allegedly used a fake Facebook profile under a name largely associated with Indo-Guyanese ancestry to make the threat. The implications of this is worthy of many think pieces.

Even after the official declaration of the 2020 elections which saw Dr. Irfaan Ali emerging as President, and the PPP/C being named the government, the APNU+AFC, occupying opposition benches, continued to lob attacks against the GECOM Chair.

It could also be remembered that in late 2021, there was no secret that Norton campaigned for Leader of his party on his distrust of Justice Singh. In December 2021, he was quoted in a media report saying: “The infamous Claudette Singh voted to make Vishnu Persaud Chief Election Officer.

“We do not believe that the best person got the job. We believe that the appointment was collusion between the Chairman of the Election Commission and the PPP Commissioners to put a PPP hack as Chief Election Officer. We will oppose it and I have said it before, that we have to fight for a new voters list. We now have to fight for a new Chairman and a new Chief Election Officer”.

After the internal imbroglio of the PNC ended in Norton’s success in his bid for party leader, albeit from a dismal voter turnout, and the eventual resignation of Joseph Harmon as Opposition Leader, Norton continued the tirade against Justice Singh. In his first address to his party’s General Council earlier this year, Norton continued to accuse the GECOM chair of political partisanship, and even spoke about raising his concerns with representatives of the international community furthering advancing his attack against her integrity.

The most direct of the attacks, however, was recorded by this newspaper earlier this month when Norton delivered a veiled threat to Justice Singh during his weekly press conference. From his own mouth: “And there are many things we can do to put the pressure on the elections commission and Claudette Singh.

“But we had first given her the opportunity to tender her resignation as a decent judge who would have served and to recognise that you cannot claim to be independent and, on every issue, you are voting with the People’s Progressive Party and you seem to have no interest in finding consensus on these issues.

“And so, we have left the door open. We hope we don’t have to close it and Claudette Singh will do the decent thing and resign”. The elections commission has come out recently to declare that it can only make decisions that are within the confines of the law. This came in direct response to many spurious claims about the voters’ list emanating from the camps of the political opposition. The actions demanded are not only illegal, but run counter to a matter already settled by Guyana’s High Court. As a former judge herself, Justice Singh has maintained she will be guided by the law. It is the right thing to do.

The public attacks against Justice Singh are gendered, they are political, and they warrant immediate police investigation. This continuous harping puts Justice Singh’s very life in danger, as had occurred just a few years ago. It is for the Opposition Leader to recognise the consequences of his actions and the actions of his political party, and to respect constitutional office holders, allowing them to carry out their functions with the independence so guaranteed them by the supreme law of the land. One would hope.