Skip to main content

Replies sorted oldest to newest

@Former Member posted:

CARICOM Chairman sticks to her gun about Lowenfield's "bizarre" behavior

https://www.kaieteurnewsonline...m-chair-mia-mottley/

We said what we have said” – CARICOM Chair Mia Mottley


 

– says Community paying keen attention to Guyana’s β€˜bizarre’ political situation

 

CARICOM is standing by the strong pronouncements made by its Chair, Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley, who weighed in on Guyana’s political situation, expressing concern over the actions of Chief Elections Officer (CEO), Keith Lowenfield, in his attempt to scrap a total of 115, 844 votes cast in the March 2, 2020 elections.

CARICOM Chair, Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley

Hours after releasing her statement, Mottley appeared on Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) CNC3 News where she said that CARICOM is keeping a watchful eye on the situation.
β€œWe’ve said what we have said for now. We are watching the situation – The heads of government are particularly, particularly attuned to the fact that these situations are difficult,” the Chair said during the interview.
According to her, the three-member CARICOM Observer Team was satisfied that the March 2 Election recount process was certified by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) and stood as a credible basis for the declaration of results.
Those results are not what were used when the CEO presented his report to the GECOM Chair, Ret’d Justice Claudette Singh and the Commission.
β€œWhat is going on,” the Barbadian PM noted β€œis a little bizarre to say the least but we shall wait and see and let the process play out over the next few days but suffice it to say that there is a Charter of Civil Society within Caribbean Communities that causes us to have to aspire to a very high level of behaviour with respect to free and fair elections and with respect to giving full effect to the will of the people.”
No election, according to Mottley, is β€œworth the life of a single human being…there is no election that is worth damaging the reputation, not only of one country but our community.”
β€œThe Caribbean has been one of those few regions that have seen people move from poverty, absolute abject poverty in the 1930’s where we had riots across almost every country to the point where we were well on our way to meeting many of the world’s sustainable development goals, going forward.
Obviously, we have had some difficulties but the reason why we have made such progress is because we have given such great stock to caring about people and building for people,” the Chair said.
The CARICOM Chairwoman posited that the continued developmental goals of CARICOM are β€œcritical”, and their involvement in Guyana’s political situation emerges from their obligations to β€œstand for something” to achieve same.
But this cannot be done, according to her, β€œif our slip is showing.”
β€œThe Caribbean Community must stand for something with respect to the pursuit of these goals and with respect to the pursuit of the values that have made us stand up as a beacon in the global community and to be able to speak truth to power when we need to speak truth to power.”

sachin_05

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH: CARICOM LEADERS MUST TELL GRANGER TO GO

By John Beale

Secretary-General of the Organization of American States, Luis Almagro, has declared that β€œit is undeniable” that the dissonance over the March 2 general elections in Guyana β€œhas gone on long enough”. Almagro is right. And, undoubtedly, he speaks for the entire Caribbean and international community by expressing his exasperation with the process.
Guyana has been known for election rigging, going back to the days of Forbes Burnham, the first leader of the Peoples National Congress (PNC) which is the main party in the APNU-AFC coalition that clearly lost the March 2 general elections but which, in what has become almost a criminal enterprise, is overturning every pebble to maintain their grab on power.
The name Clairmonte Mingo has already been carved in infamy in the history of Guyana. It is he, who like the comic strip figure of old, Mandrake the Magician, conjured figures on his sordid spread sheet to declare APNU-AFC the winner of Region 4 by numbers that allowed it to overtake the Peoples Progressive Party lead in 8 of the 10 voting districts. However much β€œMandrake” Mingo may have gestured hypnotically he failed miserably to hypnotise the regional and international Election Observer Missions into accepting his voodoo numbers. They all protested vigorously, including former Barbados Prime Minister, Owen Arthur, who threw his observer badge to the ground when the Minister of Foreign Affairs threatened to withdraw the accreditation of all the Observers if they did not kowtow to Mingo’s attempted fraud.
Enter, at this point, five CARICOM Prime Ministers, led by their Chair, Prime Minister Mottley of Barbados. They brokered an agreement between President David Granger and Opposition Leader Bharat Jagdeo with the agreement of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) that all the votes would be recounted under the now well known mantra: β€œEvery vote must be counted, and every vote must count”. Ms Mottley spoke of β€œdark forces” at work in the elections’ machinery.
The man in charge of the elections’ machinery is now rivalling β€œMandrake” Mingo for infamy. Keith Lowenfield is the Chief Elections Officer who, along with President Granger, on the day of the Guyana elections, proclaimed it to be β€œfree and fair”; in other words no fraud. All the Elections Observer missions agreed. All that was left was for the votes in each electoral district to be counted and a winner declared. Then, with the PPP/C ahead after 9 of the 10 districts were counted, Mingo appeared with his magical numbers.
Thereafter, Lowenfield fell in line with the β€œdark forces” to declare that the elections, of which he was the man-in-charge and which he had pronounced to be β€œfree and fair”, had now become fraudulent. According to him and without producing one shred of evidence to substantiate his claim, over 260,000 of the 460,352 votes cast were either persons who had emerged from the graveyards of Guyana or somehow managed to be β€œabroad” while presenting themselves, national ID in hand, to vote at the polling stations. He subsequently, reduced the number of fraudulent votes without explanation or evidence.
So far, between Mingo and Lowenfield, the officials of GECOM have produced four different sets of figures at different times, not one pairing the other, but none of them matching the total votes as reflected in the statements of poll from each of the electoral districts on March 2. Mandrake and Houdini have raised the standard of elections rigging in Guyana to a new and preposterous high.
Meanwhile, a CARICOM team of scrutineers, joined by a team from the OAS, scrutinised a National Recount of all the votes. The exercise began on May 6 and ended on June 8. The CARICOM scrutineers and each of the supervisors of the recount, certified that the PPP/C had won the elections by over 15,500 votes.
The β€œdark forces” then rushed to the Court of Appeal, where two allegedly faithful judges agreed to by-pass the High Court where elections matters are normally heard. This was the third time since March 2 that APNU-AFC agents have gone to the Courts, and twice to the favoured Court of Appeal. Lowenfield was given the opportunity to provide a report to the GECOM Commission, in which he bold-facedly stated, with no evidence, that 115,587 votes were fraudulent, and he gave the elections to the APNU-AFC. The GECOM Commission is yet to pronounce on this extraordinary difference with the scrutinised recount.
This Guyana election has brought shame on Guyana and risks tainting all of CARICOM. The matter has now been taken to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) from which the people of our region expect fairness and justice. I hold no candle for any of the contesting parties in Guyana, but I hold aloft a blazing torch for democracy and the will of the people.
As the Secretary-General of the OAS has said: β€œGECOM is in possession of a result based on the valid votes cast on March 2, 2020, through a recount exercise that was approved by all stakeholders and a credible result was provided. The process in Guyana must be brought to an end, based on the results of the national recount, and with respect for the will of the majority of the electorate”.
The dark forces in Guyana must not be allowed to contaminate or disgrace other countries in CARICOM that value democracy and free and fair elections. Granger should be told by all CARICOM leaders that all attempts to steal the elections have failed and are over; he should go now, put an end to the abuse of the Court system and spare Guyana any further shame.

(John Beale is a former Ambassador of Barbados to the US and Permanent Representative to the OAS for seven and a half years and was also a Financial Consultant to the OAS)

https://caribbeannewsservice.c...J-WOyipfX84yPMOGIP54

FM
Last edited by Former Member

Add Reply

×
×
×
×
×
Link copied to your clipboard.
×
×