Let us resort to adopting the final report

Dear Editor,

The Chairperson of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has finally made her electronically communicated decision for a recount of the March 2, 2020 declared election results using no more than 10 workstations. However, a starting date for the proposed recount was not yet provided. As suspected and anticipated, the PPP and its aligned and allied cronies have started griping.

Once again, while I hold no esteemed position, affiliation or legal accolade, it is strongly opined that our pursuit of this type of preemptive approach to an election petition contravenes our laws. We will pardon our leaders for acknowledging that this proposal was an obvious oversight on their part, and that we should resort to what governs the electoral process. However, to continue with this chaotic experiment may lead us into the deepest regret to face this land.

With the new wave of opposition to the GECOM Chair’s recount decision, it is clearer to see that there will never be consensus on anything that is not the pure dictates of the PPP.
The Chair may now adopt the Chief Executive Officer (CEO)’s final report for the March 2, 2020 declared election results, since all efforts to resolve the impasse in a fair and unbiased manner have failed. GECOM has a fundamental role and responsibility. GECOM’s final task has been held in abeyance by the Chair. The Chair should have no obligation to any political party or leader.

The Chair should NOT allow her function to be influenced nor compromised by opinion, personal or private deliberations of any contesting political party or parties. The Chair is our umpire, and although reviews are helpful, that Chair must act in a ‘Fit and Proper’ manner that reflects the desires of those who crafted our electoral laws. The Chair should act within her constitutional mandate on what is before her – that final report.

An election petition should be the way to go if the elections, which were deemed free and fair up to the point of declarations, are sighted as having controversial results.
We should be cognizant that those who are constantly crying ‘wolf’ seem to be the most recalcitrant and guilty of the very things they gripe about.

A few days after the General Elections (GE), the Presidential Candidate of the People’s Republican Party (PRP) – A professed God-fearing Party, made a startling confession. Rev. Pastor Phyllis Jordan confessed before the Lord and the Guyanese nation that a leading political party had furnished the PRP with a spreadsheet of the GE results that conflicted with those of original Statements of Poll (SOPs) from her party’s agents. It is widely suspected that the PRP was supplied with those conflicting totals from the PPP, since the APNU/AFC denied doing so.

Madam Jordan’s confession was a timely revelation that exposed the PPP’s crude account of results, which varied from those that supported GECOM’s official declarations obtained from original SOPs.
If intelligence received after the close of polls on March 2, 2020 are anything to go by, spreadsheet results similar to those given to the PRP were also supplied to the plethora of other small parties that contested ‘in only some regions’ of the GE, and persons associated with leading foreign Heads of Mission stationed in Guyana.

There have been numerous complaints, allegations and reports that the PPP and their surrogates have systematically reproduced conflicting SOPs and summary of total votes, in their attempt to create doubt, confusion, and besmirch the official SOPs and final declarations for each administrative region by GECOM.

It is therefore not surprising that the unified attack against GECOM flowed from all those who were provided with unofficial results from PPP manufactured spreadsheets. GECOM is the only authorised body that can declare election results.

GECOM needs to be wary of the much-embraced post-declaration recounting of votes, which although made in good faith and not expected to change the winner, has already seen signs of reneging by the main opposition from what was originally agreed upon. GECOM should seek to untangle itself from a well-orchestrated ploy by the PPP as it constantly keeps shifting the goal posts thereby creating deeper constitutional confusion.

Apart from the APNU/ AFC, the PPP was the only other significant contestant of the March 2 General and Regional Elections; elections that were duly won by the APNU/AFC Coalition based on declared results.
It is understood that the Chairperson of GECOM may be operating under intense duress, as there have been a barrage of threats from the gang of PPP-aligned entities and foreign delegations here. The insinuation that international sanctions may be forthcoming against individuals, and the Guyanese nation as a whole, if GECOM adopts the officially declared results is a direct usurpation and attempt to destabilise a legitimate government.

GECOM ought not to be coerced nor intimidated by innuendos, but recognise the rights of the majority of Guyanese who evidently voted to re-elect the APNU/ AFC government based on the officially declared results. More disastrous may be the outcome should GECOM not to do so by allowing itself to be hoodwinked by those who seek to undermine the integrity of that august body and our electoral processes. GECOM must comply with all legal provisions, which are pellucid under the Representation of the People’s Act.

Our laws unequivocal regarding challenges to declared election results by aggrieved parties – Laws of Guyana, Cap. 1:03 Sec 61 (2)(b) b. There is also precedence by which GECOM may be guided, exemplified by the December 1997 GE election petition. Those laws must be respected and upheld by GECOM since vitiating already declared results is a premise of illegality and may lead to a total breakdown of law and order.

If the threat of international sanctions is to be activated because we followed our electoral laws, we will be vindicated for saving Guyana from far greater internal disaster in years to come!

Yours faithfully,
Orette Cutting