“I have never seen a more transparent effort to alter the results of an election,” Bruce Golding, Head of the OAS observer mission to the March 2 election told the OAS Permanent Council the day before yesterday. “You know it takes an extraordinarily courageous mind to present fictitious numbers when such a sturdy paper trail exists,” he further remarked, evincing a glint of humour as he said it. Well it would seem that Guyana is not lacking in courageous minds; in fact, there seems to be an abundance of them.
The former Prime Minister of Jamaica interrupted his presentation to give a few examples of the alteration of results, citing the ballot box numbers to which they related. He told the meeting that the fictitious numbers were being revealed in the course of the recount now underway, and in the instances he gave, the Statements of Recount corresponded to the original Statements of Poll. The results which had been put up on a screen by Mr Clairmont Mingo during the original tabulation process, however, deviated substantially from these, as his figures demonstrated. Those numbers, he said, were clearly fiddled.
After explaining how the mission had prepared itself for the election, and then confirming that the polls had been conducted in accordance with the relevant laws in nine of the ten regions, Mr Golding went on to regret the tainting of the Region Four tabulation of results.
This in turn had tainted the overall process and “led to the protracted delay in the declaration of the results,” he said. After reciting the issues pertaining to the disruptions at the tabulation stage he said that the OAS mission had left Guyana on March 14 after issuing a statement that the process conducted by the Returning Officer for Region Four did not meet the required standard of fairness and transparency and would not be likely to produce a credible result.
He also addressed the current slow pace of the recount, where the OAS has observers present, itemising some of the impediments which were creating “inordinate” delays, and along with US Deputy Permanent Representative Alexis Ludwig expressed his concern that the Carter Center had not been granted permission to return to Guyana to observe the process. For his part, Mr Ludwig described Mr Golding’s address as “compelling and personal” and “somewhat disturbing.”
Following such a detailed presentation, it was left to the Ambassador of this country’s de facto government to respond. But what could Mr Riyad Insanally say? Given the fact that the events which Mr Golding detailed occurred in the full glare of the Region Four office and in the presence of any number of reputable people in the form of observers and diplomats, among others, he could hardly gainsay the facts. Instead he followed the example of Guyana’s de facto President and limply insisted that Guyana remained governed by the rule of law. All that can be said is that if Mr Golding’s account has substance – and the incontrovertible evidence is there to prove that it does – then the last thing that can be asserted is that the country remains governed by the rule of law.
He also said that the executive does not interfere with Gecom, which is an independent constitutional body, and that Mr Granger had repeatedly stated that he would “accept the declaration of the results by the Elections Commission which will allow for a democratically elected government to be sworn into office.” It all sounded very Granger-like and utterly meaningless, considering that the President has appeared totally unperturbed by events, and has at no point indicated he would not be sworn in on the basis of fraudulent results. Being prepared to abide by Gecom’s declaration is not the same thing as refusing to be sworn in following the declaration of a non-credible result, because employees of the commission are engaging in fraud.
But as a former Prime Minister of Jamaica, what Mr Golding had to say clearly stung the de facto President. According to the state newspaper it was only hours after the head of the OAS observer team had spoken that Mr Joseph Harmon, Mr Granger’s right-hand man who everybody thought had been transferred to the Covid-19 Task Force, discharged a retaliatory blast.
In a response unredeemed by even a smidgeon of wit, humour or subtlety Mr Harmon resorted to the time-honoured tactic of all those whose arguments are totally lacking in credibility: discredit the messenger and not the message. He alleged that it was no secret that Mr Golding was a close friend and ally of Mr Bharrat Jagdeo, and had been to the latter’s private house prior to serving as head of the OAS Observer mission. Mr Golding, he said, was compromised, and had now become “an unabashed co-conspirator of the PPP as they seek to defy the will of the Guyanese people.”
If the vulgarity of this is not enough to leave the average sane Guyanese breathless, Mr Harmon had more to say: “The APNU+AFC notes that Mr Golding and People’s Progressive Party General Secretary Bharrat Jagdeo appeared in tandem before the media – Mr Golding virtually and Mr Jagdeo at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre. It appears as if this was coordinated and pre-arranged to deliver statements which were strikingly similar in content and style.” This is so ludicrous one wonders how Mr Harmon had the brazenness to say it at all. It certainly does not sound like the best of PR wisdom to have two independent personalities saying the same thing at the same time in different places and be given equal exposure. Or is Mr Harmon suggesting that the OAS as an organisation now coordinates its activities with the PPP/C? That indeed would be headline news.
And then of course there is the evidence that the Covid-19 head considers particularly unchallengeable, namely, a photo of then Prime Minister Bruce Golding and then President Bharrat Jagdeo at an event in Spanish Town, Jamaica on August 1, 2009. It does not seem to bother him that presumably after much digging, the only thing that could be located was a photo from eleven years ago, and that on Emancipation Day at a celebration.
It is almost tiresome to iterate that the issue is not who Mr Golding’s friends are or who he chooses to visit – and one suspects even Mr Harmon doesn’t know that – but the status of the evidence cited not just by the OAS observer mission head but by all the other observer missions, all the local observer missions and all the party agents except for APNU+AFC. But then the coalition’s new “narrative”, to use Mr Harmon’s favourite word, is not that, but what they claim are the irregularities which have been found since the recount started, and which amount to “fraud on the Guyanese people”.
But then the absurdity of that claim is another story.
