As he plans a career outside of politics, former Minister of Business Dominic Gaskin says Alliance for Change (AFC) leaders made a serious misjudgment in not calling out the District Four fraud perpetrated by Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo and he also faulted Guyana Elections Commission Chair Claudette Singh for not acting more decisively in the five-month-long elections crisis.
Declaring his disgust with politics, Gaskin said that he is disappointed that the AFC, of which he is an executive, did not condemn the activities of Mingo, who tried on March 5th to fraudulently give the elections to the former governing coalition, APNU+AFC, knowing that it had not seen, much less analysed, any of the Statements of Polls (SOPs) that suggested the win.
“After what we saw in March, which was a very glaring attempt by Mr. Mingo and whoever he was working with to make a declaration on his own figures, not supported by the SOPs that GECOM had in its possession, I thought the AFC made a wrong call on that particular issue and I am not sure how you recover from something like that,” Gaskin told Sunday Stabroek in an interview.
“I think the leadership exercised bad judgement at that point and never thought of looking back and just went further and further down that slippery slope of being a political party and ignoring something that everyone saw and were screaming about. We chose to brush it aside as if it never happened and in doing so we lost the trust of that very niche of that support base that the AFC brought independently to the coalition“, he added.
Gaskin said that all the while the AFC was silent, he made his positions known to the party and what he expected of it but his concerns seemed to have fallen on deaf ears.
He said that while the reception to him personally was not hostile, the party still stayed silent and he got the impression that they felt that “the coalition was on the brink of being declared the winner in the elections and they didn’t want to hear anything that would detract from that victory”.
He said that they felt that any other view could be dealt with in an elections petition as Mingo had made a declaration and the AFC was a beneficiary of it and “we should not question it”.
“I know it was fraudulent,” Gaskin declared as he explained that “there is no evidence to suggest otherwise”.
Since Mingo’s attempts to derail the democratic process on March 5th, Gaskin has been vocal about the support the coalition, and more specifically his own AFC, had given to the illegal acts.
He took to Facebook several times to make his views known as he condemned the acts.
In March, he said that he did not personally buy Mingo’s figures. He explained to this newspaper that it was because the APNU+AFC’s SOPs were never shared with him and to his knowledge no one from his party had received them.
Later, he would again call out APNU+AFC, saying that they were fooling their supporters and giving them false hopes.
Irresponsible
In the interview, Gaskin said that he believed that it was irresponsible of the party leaders to mislead their supporters in a politically charged environment like Guyana, while adding that the coalition itself was being fooled by some of its own members.
“I think the coalition was itself being fooled because I don’t think the leadership of the coalition collectively got together and said we are going to interfere with the results of the elections. I don’t know who the individuals would have been. What bothers me is that the coalition was willing to claim a victory without producing its Statements of Poll. I found that irresponsible, given our ethnic dynamic,” he said
“Even if you figure somebody in GECOM is tampering with these results, we are going to stay quiet and let the process continue? But to sit quiet on your SOPs and not produce them, not examine them, not internally …share them with the AFC executive? Basically you tell your supporters we won this election and we have the SOPs to support it, when in fact you don’t have any to support it and you are certainly doing your best to not produce it. I think it is irresponsible!” he added.
But he said that when he blasted the APNU+AFC, it was never a direct attack on any one person, which includes his father-in-law, former President David Granger.
Gaskin said that although his family dynamics are complex, both his extended and immediate family never allow politics to interfere with their relationships.
Asked if since the elections his relationship with Granger has been strained, he replied in the negative. “Not at all!” he said.
“I can only speak for myself and what I have experienced. I have not seen or felt any backlash. But I have been very mindful of the situation and that is why I have not been doing any interviews or anything while the matter was unresolved, because I felt that…gossip for a lot of people can easily be used. If I go out and speak freely, it would be good for those that don’t support the coalition and I guess it is a bit of a feather in the cap. They can say, ‘Look the former minister or the president son-in-law blah, blah, blah’. I understand all of that, and, therefore, deliberately did not stray outside of my few Facebook posts,” he explained.
And when asked if he believed that Granger was an honest, honourable and good leader, he gave a sharp “Yes!”
Granger’s acceptance of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) declaration on August 2nd that the PPP/C had won and the swearing in of Irfaan Ali on the same day left Gaskin both shocked and euphoric. “I did not know [that Granger would accept]. I was very surprised but also very relieved because it happened very quickly,” he said.
However, he holds to the view that GECOM Chairperson Singh could have put an end to the situation much sooner, instead of allowing room for multiple court cases to be filed.
“I always felt that the GECOM Chair could have acted or should have acted decisively in these matters. Soon as the court made a decision, you just move and make sure there was a result. I was hoping then that she would not delay any longer and say ‘ Ok, you know (Chief Election Officer) Mr (Keith) Lowenfield, you have until next week Wednesday to present your report’. I was relieved very happy and I think the whole country is,” he said.
‘Blind loyalty’
For the United Kingdom-born Gaskin, who has lived most of his life in Guyana and who gave up his ministerial position because he felt it was unfair to have to renounce the country of his birth, the 2020 elections has left him disgusted with local politicians and politics.
As such he is planning a future going back into his own business investments, working alongside his wife and spending more time with his family.
“I don’t really see my future in party politics. I have gotten involved, and don’t have a problem making some contribution that I can in any other way. I don’t want to be in parliament, to be a minister again, to be in the leadership of a political party or that. Pretty much, I don’t want to be involved in politics. Not I don’t want to be interested in the politics of Guyana but I have had enough of it more or less.
“Party politics sometimes calls for blind loyalty and I don’t have blind loyalty to offer to any political party. I say that upfront and, therefore, I am not a good candidate for any political party because I am not going to be blindly loyal to any leader or any party. I have a family business to go back to which my wife has been running for the last few years and which I would like to get more involved in. I have a number of other things I am doing and am interested in. I have enough things to take up my time outside of politics,” he added.
Gaskin resigned as Business Minister after the Caribbean Court of Justice ruled that dual citizens could not sit in Parliament. The action had been brought on behalf of APNU+AFC, which had been seeking to overturn the vote in Parliament of dual citizen Charrandass Persaud, which caused the collapse of its government in a motion of no confidence on December 21st 2018. The case failed to neutralise Persaud’s vote.
