PPP/C candidate Gail Teixeira on Sunday labelled government’s claim that it expelled Russians from Guyana on the belief that they were here to interfere in the electoral process at the behest of the opposition as “ludicrous and comical,” while saying that Guyana is descending into a police state.
“The count in the polling station is done manually not electronically and the statements of poll are verified and tabulated manually, so there is no electronic systems for Russians or anybody else to hack into,” Teixeira said in a video shared on the PPP/C’s Facebook page.
Last Thursday, Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan and his colleague, Minister of Public Telecommunications, Cathy Hughes, said two Russians and a Libyan national were expelled on March 2nd, the day Guyana went to the polls.
Ramjattan had also announced that a fourth person was being sought and that computers, tablets, flash drives, and a number of “other things electronic” were seized from the foreign nationals and were in the possession of the Guyana Police Force. The police force has not to date issued a public statement on the matter.
Ramjattan had said that the three persons had been speaking to leading members of the PPP/C at the Marriott Hotel. The minister, who had then admitted to being “still hazy on the position,” noted that one of the persons was Russian, another a Russian American, and the other a Libyan. He said while the men claimed they came to work for Exxon, it was “PPP lawyers” and not Exxon lawyers who were seeking to represent them. He later said he understands that Exxon was contacted by the Commission-er of Police Leslie James.
“We had to deport them on elections day after our intelligence realised that there were some conspiracy to tap into to [the] GECOM [Guyana Elections Commission] computer system. They were immediately deported. A fourth one, who was not found at his Marriott room is on the run somewhere, we are not finding him,” Ramjattan had said.
Ramjattan said he thought it wise to deport the three persons. “Judgement calls have to be made and when you’re a minister these are the decisions at an executive level you take,” he said, while refusing to explain the rationale.
Meanwhile, Teixeira in her statement said that Guyana is moving towards a police state as the government had acquired a new surveillance system and she lamented how it is being used by the security forces.
“We have a number of cases where people have come to us and who have been searched afterwards…,” she said.
She gave the recent example of Gustavo Arnavat, a former US Exe-cutive Director of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), who had made a visit to opposition leader Bharrat Jagdeo and afterwards when he went back to his hotel the police searched him and questioned him.
She characterised this as the behaviour of a police state and said surveilling anyone who meets with Jagdeo does not reflect normal police work.
Teixeira also stated that on Saturday when the ongoing elections court matter was before the court someone had taken photos of snipers on the roof of the Sharon’s Mall building, located a stone’s throw away from the court. She called it indications of a police state and of a government that is desperate and one that has no popular support and has to resort to such scrutiny and threats.
