Sanctions must be swift and sure as GECOM’s delaying tactics

Dear Editor,
As Keith Lowenfield acts more like a coup executive officer rather than a neutral, honest broker Chief Elections Officer, all the parties must now move to the next step of lobbying the external forces to implement sanctions against the coup leaders.

We have done enough of begging, pleading and moral suasion, and appealing to the PNC and GECOM Chair Claudette Singh to do the right thing and to do her job. Neither Lowenfield nor Singh, or the PNC, seems in a hurry to resolve our election problems. It cannot be that a handful of people can oppress the rest of the nation, violate the Constitution and procedures, and hold the nation to ransom as a deadly plague poses major threats to our health and economy.

Enough is enough. As it has done since December 2018, GECOM is doing the bidding of the PNC. If moral suasion and court orders cannot force the GECOM and PNC to do the right thing, then the struggle now moves to a different level. People’s patience has run out, and only the PNC, and PNC only, stands indicted if the situation gets ugly. If people take matters into their own hands, GECOM and the PNC stand indicted. They have pushed the people over the edge.

The combined Opposition parties must urgently fight for quick, swift sanctions against all those who aided, abetted, and perpetrated acts of omission or commission in facilitating the rig.
Already, top GECOM staffers stand indicted in the court of public opinion and in the pronouncements of the foreign and local observers, the Chief Justice, and by the Statements of Poll released to the parties and the public by GECOM on election night.

On election night, everyone knew that the PNC was not the winner, that the PPP obtained 53% of the votes.
The PNC has a sordid past of rigging elections between 1964-1992, given its control of all the state agencies and coercive arms of the state. In these modern, enlightened times, it is simply unacceptable to look the other way if the PNC is allowed to rig itself into power. “This time na lang time.” We have seen how rigging pauperised the nation under the first PNC rule, and it took 28 years of work to restore the right to vote in free and fair elections. This must never be allowed to happen again.

Calling for immediate, widespread sanctions is not only right, but is necessary. It will not be a betrayal of country, it becomes a moral imperative as the means to save our country and democracy, and especially the working poor.
When the PNC closes off democratic means to elect and change a government, then it forces the Opposition to use parliamentary and any other supportive actions to remove a regime that crudely foists itself upon the people. In this case, “non-cooperation with evil becomes our national sacred duty.”

If the PNC is allowed to get away, that’s the end of elections in Guyana if the votes will not be counted fairly and honestly in an open, transparent manner. People think that with counting at the close of polls in effect now, elections are not rigable anymore; but we have been proven wrong, and the PNC has moved from its basic manual on rigging to an advanced manual for rigging elections.

The crude, in-your-face rigging in front of the diplomatic corps, foreign and local observers and party candidates and representatives shows the PNC has not an ounce of shame, and such action must be severely punished. I call on the world community to impose the harshest sanctions imaginable on this wicked, ruthless PNC regime. Anything less than that would be a betrayal of the Guyanese people.

The PPP must lead a coalition for democracy in lobbying foreign governments and international organisations, including the United Nations, Commonwealth, Organisation of American States, ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific countries), Norway, the Gulf Cooperation Council, and other regional and economic bodies. We should start this process now, so GECOM and the PNC understand that we are serious.

Sincerely,
Dr Jerry Jailall