Today in 2020, the majority of Guyanese are yet again fighting to have democratic principles prevail, albeit this time it is to ensure their votes are not stolen or disregarded by rigging of the Elections.
Twice by Clairmont Mingo and now after much litigation and finality of the recount process which most certainly tested the patience of the entire nation, we are yet again left at the mercy of Mr. Lowenfield CEO of the Guyana Elections Commission who unilaterally decided more than one week ago that he will foist upon himself the power to disenfranchise 275,000 electors and most recently after the pronouncement of the Court of Appeal in the Eslyn David matter in a mad rush he submitted another falsified report this time wiping away 115 thousand plus votes as being invalid.
Observers from the High Level CARICOM team (referred to by the President as the most legitimate interlocutor), who despite the Covid-19 pandemic dedicated their energies and time to scrutinizing the Recount Process and accurately presented their final report stated that “we are…of the unshakeable belief that the people of Guyana expressed their will at the ballot box” and that the recount results are completely acceptable.
Further Madam chairwoman of GECOM in her wisdom as a retired Judge publicly announced that GECOM and by extension the CEO does not possess the authority of a Court of Law to pronounce on the validity of an election and definitely does not have the power to invalidate votes.
This brings me to several reasons (in my view) why it was necessary to appeal the said Eslyn David case to the Caribbean Court of Justice; firstly the issues in that case touched and concerned the validity of an Election in so far as votes were validly cast and was quite clearly outside the ambit of Article 177 (4) of the Constitu-tion; secondly as a precautionary measure to ensure no voter is disenfranchised, and thirdly to preserve the paramountcy of our Constitution which must not to be altered by an ordinary piece of legislation on the whims and fancies of any party.
