Gouveia in forefront condemning attempts to hijack elections

Dear Editor,
I refer to an article “PSC executives rally around Chairman Gerry Gouveia” Kaieteur News, April 28, 2020. This was in response to a letter written by Mr Beni Sankar questioning Gerry Gouveia’s role as Chairman. Firstly, let me say that I am the President of the Central Corentyne Chamber of Commerce and has represented our Chamber for about six years as a member of the Council of the PSC. During the last six years I attended Council meetings, I can vaguely recall seeing Mr Sankar there at one or two
meetings the most. I don’t think his organisation at present is a financial member.

I was taken aback reading Mr Beni Sankar’s letter on social media talking about the elections and attacking the PSC Chairman. Honestly speaking, I was very saddened, more for Mr Sankar after reading his letter than feeling sorry for Mr Gouveia, who is absolutely capable of defending himself and the PSC. Saddened because from Mr Sankar’s letter, one can be forgiven for seeing a man in the twilight of his life quite envious of the younger, very capable Chairman whose own businesses have been very successful and his approach to the governance of PSC has been inspirational in the past year at the helm of the organisation. Mr Gouviea has built a very good network of cooperation and frank discussions with the ABC countries, the EU and any many other international organisations that come to Guyana to do business. I know I have attended many of those meetings.

The substance of Mr Sankar’s criticism of Mr Gouveia to me is more personal than substantial, eg,
“Transport officer for the diplomat”. The man owns an airline business and is a pilot and Mr Beni know this. He has a quarrel with Mr Gouveia that he, Mr Gouveia, “claimed results for District Four lacked credibility”. On this note, Mr Gouveia is in illustrious company. The OAS, Carter Center, The Commonwealth, the EU, and Caricom made it absolutely clear that the results for District Four was not “credible and lacked transparency”. As a matter of fact, no less than the Secretary of State of the United States of America made it absolutely clear that the recount should be “free, fair, transparent and credible”.

Nowhere in Mr Sankar’s letter has he condemned the blatant and crude attempt to rig the results of Region Four in favour of APNU, but he had a problem with the PSC calling for recounting of Region Four only. There were absolutely no issues with the other nine regions prior to the Region Four declaration but that issue subsequently became a red herring when calls came for the recount of Region Four.

Finally, the issue of a letter sent to the OAS where Mr Beni said: “Many in the PSC said that they were not consulted or shown the letter.” These are the facts on this matter and I will leave it to the readers to decide Mr Gouveia’s fate here; whether he should be blamed. Our national election was held on March 2 and by end of March, we still had no results, thus, the PSC decided to write a few organisations seeking help for the country with the crisis. I received as head of the Central Corentyne Chamber on March 28, 2020, copies of letters to be sent out to international organisations and I understand this was also sent to 22 organisations with a time to respond by March 30 if there were objections to the contents. No one sent any dissent and the letters were sent out on March 31. When the contents of the letters hit the press two days later, 3 organisations out of 22 made objections.

In closing, I would like to say I have attended numerous meetings of the PSC Council from 2014 and the PSC, with different Chairmen, was quite a professional organisation. In 2015, under Chairman Ramesh Persaud, the PSC, which observed the 2015 elections, duly informed President Ramotar that in the view of the organization, the PPP lost in a free and fair election.

Today, when the same PSC is battling blatant attempts to rig an election, all kinds of ridiculous accusations are made against it and its Chairman, Gerry Gouveia. Gerry Gouveia, from my personal interactions, has been very fair in conducting meetings of the organisation before the elections and has done an incredibly good job after the elections, fighting for Guyana in the face of barefaced attempts to hijack an election in front of the world in the year 2020.

Sincerely,
M Raffik
Council Member, PSC
President Central Corentyne Chamber of Commerce