GECOM’s purported request effectively reverses the burden on GECOM to prove APNU-AFC’s unproven allegations

Dear Editor,

At a press briefing outside the ACCC, Vincent Alexander announced that GECOM has purportedly written to the Chief Immigration Officer requesting information about the allegations submitted by the APNU-AFC that persons whose names were ticked-off as voted were not in the country on Elections day March 2nd, 2020.

Assuming that Alexander is in possession of some special relationship-based information that Sase Gunraj, another GECOM Commissioner, has publicly disputed knowledge of any such decision taken by GECOM, this purported request would be antipodal to the previously stated position by the Chairman of GECOM i.e. “he who alleges must prove.” This purported request by GECOM effectively reverses the burden on GECOM to prove the unproven allegations by APNU-AFC. This would be a highly unusual course of action considering that GECOM has not requested the police to investigate Clairmont Mingo’s declaration despite the fact that his conduct pre-dates the unproven allegations by the APNU-AFC.

Notwithstanding, I would submit that premised on the following reasons the purportedly requested information from the Chief Immigration Officer would be manifestly unreliable for the purpose of definitively determining whether the persons who voted were in the country on Elections day.

First, many persons travel on the different passports issued to them by different countries, so their presence in the country may not be accurately recorded by immigration records. For instance, “John Singh” who has a passport issued to him by Guyana and another issued to him by the USA, departs Guyana using his passport issued by Guyana but returns to Guyana on his passport issued by the USA; the immigration record would not accurately capture that it is the same “John Singh” who would have left the country on Guyana Passport number 123456 but returned on USA passport number 654321. I know many persons who travel in and out of the country on the various passports issued to them by different countries.

Second, Guyanese sometimes use “backtrack” points so while their departure may be recorded, their arrival may not be recorded. For instance, “Tom Jones” travels to Suriname via Ogle airport and returns via the “backtrack” point in Corriverton. In this example, Tom Jones would be recorded in the immigration system as having departed the shores of Guyana, but not recorded as having returned even though would be in Guyana.

Third, the ticking-off of voters on the voter’s lists (OLE) by the presiding officer is not a legal requirement and may not always be accurate. There is no legal requirement for voters to be ticked-off on the OLE when they would have voted; it is merely a practise which functions as a control mechanism. This reason is compounded by the fact that human beings are not machines, so we all make mistakes. Professionals of all kinds who would have trained and practised for decades are oftentimes found liable for negligence. The possibility of human error or negligence by presiding officers working for long hours on Elections day remains a reality unable to be avoided.

Fourth, there has been no verification of the persons purportedly ticked-off on the OLE. On elections day, the OLE is given to all the political party polling agents scrutinizing the process. The polling agents also conduct their own control mechanism of ticking-off voters on the OLE along with other GECOM staff. The information that specific persons purportedly voted did not go through a cross-referencing of the OLEs to verify whether a person on the OLE did indeed vote.

In fact, there were several instances where the OLE was irregularly taken back from the polling agents by the presiding officer at the close of polls. Given everything we have seen over the last few months there can be no question of the importance of verification.

Fifth, many persons may not know but under the Laws of Guyana, the Chief Immigration Officer is also the Commissioner of Police. The actions of the Guyana Police Force after elections day have raised many questions of its impartiality and even involvement in the attempt to rig the election on behalf of the political party which occupies the seat of government at the moment, i.e. the APNU-AFC, and ably assisted by a handful of persons in GECOM. This, in turn, raises serious questions of the role played by the Commissioner of Police, as the head of the Guyana Police Force, and how that would extend to the role he plays as the Chief Immigration Officer.

Finally, given what we saw with the declaration for Region 4, can Guyana be satisfied that the integrity and veracity of any data in the hands of the government is insulated from political compromise by the APNU-AFC? We have seen the APNU-AFC operate on the principle of “by any means necessary” in order to rig the election and unlawfully hold on to power so one would be foolhardy to think that they have suddenly aborted their diabolical mission.

Yours respectfully
Charles Ramson Jnr.