Those who caused the PPP’s downfall are now trying to remain relevant

Dear Editor,
This narrative of rigged elections from this PPP clan simply cannot be laughed away. Guyana needs a strong opposition and electoral integrity to strengthen our democracy and for these reasons, these assertions must be analyzed. Frankly, I do not think the real reason for these positions and statements is about democracy or electoral integrity. These vagabonds who have hijacked and caused the downfall of the PPP are doing this to remain relevant, to hold onto the reins of the PPP and for self-preservation and immunity. They want the immunity offered by sitting in Parliament.
They want to be atop the PPP for when the investigation starts into their corruption and misfeasance, they will use that perch to try to argue it is political victimization at work as opposed to legitimate investigation and prosecution of banditry and personal crookedness. The narrative of stolen elections they are parading is also a clever ploy to try to subdue an angry, upset and disgusted PPP membership and to prevent that very same membership from rising up and purging and prosecuting these rogues. This is not about democracy, it is about this very bunch of charlatans trying, yet again, to autocratically impose upon and dominate the PPP, even as they are responsible for the PPP’s loss of power.
The ludicrous statement from Leslie Ramsammy about the election being rigged by the ABC countries because of the potential for finding oil in Guyana highlights his puerile PPP-taught anti-West pedagoguery. To use his chieftain’s famous phrase ‘show us the evidence’. Ramsammy and his lamenting cohorts must first prove fraud. These are the creatures who held power for the past 19 years and did nothing to reform the electoral system to prevent any possibility of fraud. Now, the frauds cry fraud. If we are to accept Ramsammy’s bizarre theories, the ABC countries chose the opposition over the PPP.
Wouldn’t it make the PPP a complete clown school for offering up the most lucrative oil exploration rights to companies from the very Western countries they dread? If we are going to discuss oil-driven buffoonery from Ramsammy and friends, why is it that the PPP offered some of the best oil exploration contracts to a small-time two-bit player called CGX, which has been pathetic in its exploration efforts to date? Who is to blame for masquerading with two-bit CGX and bringing Exxon-Mobil late to the table and losing power shortly after? Was this CGX outfit started by individuals with close ties to the PPP regime? Do senior PPP leaders have significant stock in this outfit? CGX is incidentally co-chaired by Jagdeo’s personal friend, Dr. Suresh Narine.
On this point, I call on the new Coalition government to investigate these contracts. What about the fact that these troglodytes cozying up to Venezuela for all these years and lapping up the Pectrocaribe goodies effectively jeopardized this country’s sovereignty and prevented the entire Essequibo offshore region, which has the greatest potential for an oil find, from being explored. It took the very same Americans whom they love to bash to march into Essequibo and drill for oil and tell the Venezuelans to go to hell. Let us address the PPP’s electoral concerns and expose them. The first concern was the PPP’s call on May 12, 2015 for recounting of ballot boxes in Regions 1, 2 and 8 because of claimed rejection of votes for spurious reasons.
GECOM counted these boxes and, based on press reports or lack thereof, there were no major discrepancies. Secondly, we hear of PPP’s counting agents fleeing polling stations out of fear. Where is the evidence – names, polling station numbers and locations, reports made to the police, media reports done within hours of close of polling, emails reportedly sent, etc? Put up the bloody evidence or shut up.
The third claim is of electoral misfeasance due to an extremely high number of rejected ballots in the areas where their agents were absent. Again, as demanded in point number two above, the PPP has to present the evidence or accept this is bogus. The fourth claim of “…unusually high turnout of voters which raises suspicion of possible electoral transgression” has to be one of the most stupid rants about electoral sneakiness. This is an election in which 409,894 voted. It is the highest vote count ever. There were more voters at some polling stations than registered voters because voters not registered can vote with the presentation of proper IDs.
The fifth claim from the PPP is there were fake Statement of Polls (SOPs). Admittedly, there is a telling lack of information from both the PPP and GECOM on this matter. That said, GECOM did discover the fake SOPs. The presence of fake SOPs is not enough to trigger a recount. As long as there are genuine SOPs for every polling station and there is evidence that only the genuine SOPs were tabulated and the fake SOPs excluded, there is no basis for a recount of ballot boxes.
To date, the PPP and GECOM are silent on whether there was an exercise, after the discovery of the fake SOPs, to verify the SOPs already entered and subsequently entered to create the final electoral tally were all genuine. If that was done, the election result is valid. The public needs to hear from the PPP and GECOM on this issue. Instead of demanding a recount of the entire election, that should have been the request. If this was not requested by the PPP or not done by Gecom, it highlights the shocking incompetence of the PPP and Gecom.
The PPP provided to Gecom 22 SOPs it claimed showed significant difference between the numbers of these SOPs and Gecom’s information. Again, we have no information on these 22 SOPs, no photos, which polling stations they relate to, the numbers for each party on them, etc. Gecom has not informed the public if any of these 22 SOPs were fakes, if numbers were altered on them or if the PPP’s 22 SOPs were different from Gecom’s and the other political parties.
Were there fake SOPs for any of these 22 ‘randomly’ selected polling stations? The PPP knows that anyone could alter a handwritten vote tally to a party on a SOP from 207 to 267 or from 119 to 109 with a simple stroke of a pen. The question is who planted the fake SOPs? Which party has the means to create and produce fake SOPs?
The fact that some very senior PPP leaders accepted the election results even as the fake SOPs argument was continued by the PPP holdouts suggests that the fake SOPs was a non-issue to these leaders in the sense that these leaders were satisfied that Gecom did the necessary rechecking of all SOPs to ensure only genuine SOPs were entered into the final vote tally. If there was genuine belief that some of the SOPs used to create the final vote count were not valid, there was no way any PPP leader, no matter how reasonable, would have yielded. The PPP would have been united in its resistance in rejecting the results and rightly so.
In this regard, it is instructive to look at the timing of the PPP’s meeting on the 22 SOPs, which coincidentally collided with Gecom’s reporting the discovery of fake SOPs. It is also instructive to examine the PPP’s actions. When a party claiming it is leading demands a recount, it suggests that party knows it lost the election and hopes the recount delivers some serious discrepancy to either swing the election numerically or more realistically, to provide a basis for a legal challenge to demand a new election. The first recount demanded by the PPP failed to provide any significant discrepancy.
M. Maxwell