President Granger’s undertaking to accept the declaration of the election results by GECOM leaves Guyana with the hopeful expectation that the election ‘torment’ will soon be over. The request made by the Chair of GECOM to the Chief Election Officer (CEO) on June 16 to deliver a report under section 96 of the Representation of the People Act (ROPA) based on the recount results, indicates that the Chair is also ready, and most likely anxious, for GECOM to make the declaration. The decision in the case before the CCJ (Jagdeo and Ali v David and others) will have an impact on the issue of the declaration.
Continue reading “THE TORMENT COULD SOON BE OVER”KEITH LOWENFIELD – A RUNAWAY TRAIN
Over the past few days, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley and Chair of Caricom, accused Keith Lowenfield, Chief Election Officer, of ‘gamesmanship.’ Having dumped 115,000 votes, the Prime Minister applied the word ‘bizarre’ to Guyana’s elections process. Representing Caricom, which has been described by President Granger as the ‘most legitimate interlocutor,’ Prime Minister Mottley characterised the electoral shenanigans as ‘not our finest hour.’ When asked to comment on the criticisms made of her comments, the Prime Minister responded that ‘the truth hurts.’
Continue reading “KEITH LOWENFIELD – A RUNAWAY TRAIN”LOOKING AHEAD BEYOND VICTIMOLOGY, WHICH IS A DEAD END
APNU will not succeed in its efforts to reverse the results of the recount; and shared governance will not be achieved by the light touch of a Madame Chancellor/President or on the rubble of burnt out ballot boxes. The most recent case in the Court of Appeal or any other case that may be later filed, such as an election petition, will not overturn the results of the elections. The reason is because the elections were free, fair and credible, as they have all been since 1992, notwithstanding the allegations that have been made by the loser, or anyone else, after every election. There was an audit of the 1997 elections as part of the Herdmanston Accord, supervised by Justice Ulric Cross of Trinidad and Tobago. He found no fraud. The challenge to the validity of thousands of votes in the Esther Perreira case, shortly after the audit was rejected. An audit, as described by the Caricom Team in its Report, was again conducted, this time on the 2020 elections, and the results did not sustain the allegations of fraud.
Continue reading “LOOKING AHEAD BEYOND VICTIMOLOGY, WHICH IS A DEAD END”HAD RODNEY LIVED, GUYANA WOULD NOT HAVE FACED THE CURRENT DILEMMA
Guyana, and indeed the world, has moved on in significant ways since June 13, 1980, when Walter Rodney was assassinated. From an authoritarian dystopia, where opposition political activists, particularly of the WPA, were invited to make their wills, where political activists were imprisoned, harassed or killed, where the economy was bankrupt, where the press was not free, where the leading western countries saw the regime as a bulwark against communism, and where the communist and progressive world saw it as a leader in the struggle against western imperialism, Guyana emerged as a democratically governed country in 1992, with the help of the same western countries, which today, in 2020, joined by a hitherto silent Caricom, are now in a defining effort to sustain that democracy.
Continue reading “HAD RODNEY LIVED, GUYANA WOULD NOT HAVE FACED THE CURRENT DILEMMA”ON THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ASSASINATION OF WALTER RODNEY, A POLITICAL SOLUTION AND FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS STILL ELUDE US
The recount winds down amidst the 40th Anniversary of the assassination of Walter Rodney, one of Guyana’s most prominent and courageous fighters for democracy and free and fair elections. The party, of which he was a leader, the WPA, now in alliance with APNU, together with the PPP, proposed separate policies in the late 1970s for shared governance. The WPA’s proposal was called “Government of National Unity and Reconstruction,” the PPP’s, a “National Patriotic Front Government.” There were formal discussions between the two parties, chaired by the neutral Ashton Chase, at the CCWU’s headquarters, seeking mutual support for each other’s proposals. There was no immediate agreement but the WPA’s subsequent adjustment to include the PNC in its Government of National Unity and Reconstruction, created an alignment of the two positions on two important issues for a political solution, namely: 1. Free and fair elections; and 2. Inclusion of the PNC in a unity government.
Continue reading “ON THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ASSASINATION OF WALTER RODNEY, A POLITICAL SOLUTION AND FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS STILL ELUDE US”