By Abena Rockliffe
For some reason, some APNU candidates are, in Guyanese parlance, “teking set up”. They are falling into PPP/C’s trap.
No government is without fault; mistakes will always be made. Perhaps, of all the errors made by the APNU+AFC government, perceived attempts to rig the 2020 General and Regional elections caused the biggest fallout with the electorate. The PPP/C is happily aware of this. Therefore, at every opportunity, the PPP/C and its supporters remind Guyana of “the rigging attempts”.
The way I see it, there are two viable options available to APNU and AFC operatives.
- They can accept that indeed there was some manipulation of the numbers in Region 4 to the benefit of APNU+AFC.
- They can simply say, “I do not know enough about what happened then to make an information pronouncement”.
During a recent interview with Guyana Standard, APNU’s Ganesh Mahipaul chose option 2, then added some spice.
When asked about the alleged rigging, Mahipaul said, “At the recount level, I can answer any question. I can tell you about the oaths of identity that were unsigned. I can tell you about the missing poll books; but I was nowhere around Region Four and I don’t want to give myself liberty about that.
“I can speak solidly when it comes to Region Three and the recount process. I can tell you that they (PPP/C) are in government on fraudulent votes, the recount shows that…there were statutory documents missing from the boxes that could not have validated the votes in the boxes.”
But other candidates are taking a different approach, one which has the potential to do more harm than good.
Let us take, for example, Dr. Dexter Todd. This man was not a candidate in 2020 and had no active role in the process. At a recent public meeting, he charged “bring ya facts. You want to say the APNU rigged the last election, bring ya facts.”
Then, Dr. Todd went beyond his initial charge. “Credible sources” posted a video on YouTube of Dr. Todd doubling down. His contention is that there are no facts to support allegations that APNU attempted to rig. Instead, he posited that it is the PPP/C that rigged.
Dr. Todd said, “This is not an issue of SOPs (Statements of Poll). This is an issue of the real irregularities raised by GECOM and the amount (sic) of extra ballots found in boxes that ought not to be there. Cannot be accounted for. We don’t know who voted.”
He noted that the Chief Elections Officer is a public servant. Therefore, when the CEO was refusing to make a report to the Chair “because of the irregularities, he was not acting as an agent of APNU but as an independent public servant.”
The Chief Elections Officer in 2020 was Keith Lowenfield. After the passage of the no-confidence motion, that independent public servant was sold, two acres of prime residential land in Mocha and over 100 acres of land at Millie’s Hideout in Region 10.
Five years have elapsed since the APNU+AFC was forced by the ABCEU to concede. Over those five years, Guyanese have been told, over and over again, about the Statements of Poll (SOP) proving the PPP/C indeed lost the 2020 election. But those SOPs were never made public.
Dr. Todd called for facts. Facts, I believe, are important in a society where people are interested in truth. Fact serves as a proxy for the truth we seek. Any reasonable person would surmise that the PPP/C presented its facts. That party’s “facts”, including their SOPs, allowed them to enter government.
Those very facts were noted by the local and international observers who said they have never seen a more transparent attempt to alter the results of an election.
“Facts” were also presented by Kaieteur News. Back in 2020, that media house tabulated results and highlighted differences between declarations made by the region four returning officer, Clairmont Mingo vs what was reflected on SOPs in the possession of every other contesting party.
When Kaieteur News examined those “facts”, reporters found the numbers were manipulated to add about 20,000 votes to APNU+AFC and subtract about 3,700 from the PPP/C.
The “facts” showed APNU’s Volda Lawrence’s signature being the only one accompanying Mingo’s on the declaration of result.
It is not lost upon me that there is more than one way to kill a cat, rigging can take different forms. The allegation by APNU operatives is that the PPP employed a more sophisticated rigging tactic. Essentially, their charge is that the PPP stuffed the ballot boxes.
Their evidence of that seems to be the fact that statutory documents were missing from ballot boxes on the East Coast. This issue was examined and ventilated at the recount level.
During a recent interview, GECOM Commissioner and member of PPP/C Central Committee, Sase Gunraj said that the procedure adopted in 2020, to count those votes in boxes that were not armed with the statutory documents was correct.
He noted that after the counting of the votes, those figures are placed on an SOP that is then given to each party rep at that polling station.
That SOP is then considered the official result from that polling station. Everything else there, according to Gunraj, is rendered nugatory. This, he explained, is mainly because whatever number makes its way on the SOP has been agreed upon by party reps and “everybody signs to it.”
However, he said that for convenience and security, ballot paper report, spoil ballot report, tender ballot report and other documents are placed in the ballot box. Those are the “statutory documents”.
Gunraj said that “those averse to the recount exercise in 2020 sought to introduce all sorts of extraneous factors to be considered.” He said that the issue about missing statutory documents was one of the “hairy fairy” objections.
Even opposition appointed GECOM commissioner, Vincent Alexander said in a recent interview with Guyana Standard, that statutory documents are not usually a requirement in a conventional recount. He said the missing documents were only highlighted because of “the nature of the 2020 recount.”
I presume the APNU strategists don’t find it politically prudent to own up to perceived misgivings in 2020. But ow man, leave the issue alone. Do not bring it up. If someone brings it up, segue. As I established in the very beginning of this article, no government is infallible. Therefore, there must be a number of issues that APNU candidates can attack at those public meetings. They can highlight the PPP’s missteps in government.
Candidates like Dr. Todd have an especially unique opportunity because they can simply distance themselves. They were not around at that time. To come fresh into politics and take on the fight of those before you is simply not tactical.
