High Court blocks CARICOM-supervised recount of Guyana’s general election votes
March 17, 2020 – Demerara Waves
The Chairperson of the Caribbean Community (Caricom), Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley said Tuesday night that there is a deliberate effort to thwart the will of Guyana’s electorate by avoiding a total national recount of the votes cast at the March 2, 2020 general elections. Hours after a Guyana High Court injunction blocked the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) from going … Read More »
March 17, 2020 – Demerara Waves 
The opposition People’s Progressive Party (PPP) on Tuesday said if David Granger is sworn in as President for a second straight term under a cloud of questionable election results, his administration would be deemed “illegal and illegitimate” and will lobby the international community for sanctions. The PPP noted that earlier Tuesday United States (US) Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo remarked … Read More »
March 17, 2020 – Demerara Waves 
Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo and President David Granger signed a record of their discussions and decisions Monday night, a move regarded as the last step before a Caribbean Community (Caricom)-supervised national recount of votes cast in the March 2, 2020 general elections begins. “This (signing) is done. Let’s see how fast the count could be done,” a well-placed source familiar … Read More »
Comments
Embarrassingly absurd !
Almost farcical !
Today 15 days later no result agreed/decided.
Wow 2020 ?
.,.
Simple logic: If Granger’s team won. Why block a recount?
Because as all observers have seen, the Mingo/Gecom count was a sham.
Furthermore. Inviting CARICOM to oversee a recount was a ruse to appear ,fair and statesman-like, but knowing an underling will come along an bring an injunction to block the recount.
They can fool the untrained mind. The whole world and likely Caricom see them exposed as FRAUDSTERS.
VNM
VNM
Troubling developments .
What is not clear to me are the reasons why the Court has granted these so-called temporary injunctions.
Ramesh
VNM
You can fool most of people all of the time
You cannot fool all of the people all of the time
KARMA
what goes arround comes arround
QED
RIP
Recommendation
Invite UN peacekeepers in ASAP.
At least until the election uncertainty is resolved.
Mr. Granger wanted the recount. He informed Mr. Jagdeo and together they agreed to it. Caricom was called in to supervise. Then there was a spanner in the works. It seems as if people in Mr. Granger’s party are against him. This does not look good. Factionalism and infighting lead to further division and that is bad for the country. The Caricom people have left saying that there are elements that do not want a recount. If the hardliners in the PNC get their way we could be in for a rough ride.
I have heard of the two factions as early as the time Mr. Granger invited in CARICOM, and just awhile back a friend said he heard of it on Globespan. This might be true and I will have to amend my view it turns out to be right.
As to why the Court (Justice Franklyn Holder) issued to injunction order is likely the same reason why former High Court judge, Ms Claudette Singh, has allowed the Mingo/GECOM farce to continue.
VNM
Here is Freddie Kissoon’s insight and analysis. He too speaks of the two factions.
I argued elsewhere (as does Kissoon) that the COVID pandemic will be used as excuse for the PNC/APNU+AFC to hang on to power for a while backed by the security forces ( He mentions the Police) until some other tactic is employed
DEADLY POWER STRUGGLE INSIDE THE PNC
Mar 18, 2020, Freddie Kissoon
The question is not maybe. There is no maybe about it. The PNC (not APNU) is currently in the throes of a power struggle over the way out of the election malady. It appears at the moment that the Granger faction is losing ground to a powerful cabal that is not prepared to concede defeat and will not concede defeat.
I will refer to the Granger group as GG and the other cabal as VT meaning Volda Lawrence and Raphael Trotman, because they are the key players in the second faction. How did these two compartments develop?
After the Mingo declaration of March 4, the sailing was smooth inside the PNC. Granger was to be sworn in but the court granted an injunction. The PNC still remained intact as a cohesive unit because the thinking was that the court would discharge the order and allow for the presidential installation. So confident was the PNC that Harmon took to television to announce an imminent swearing-in soon after the dismissal of the injunction.
This was not to be. The mistake the PNC made was three-fold. One – the Mingo announcement of March 4 was too disgraceful to be accepted by world opinion. Two – international actors had pronounced the Mingo figures as fraudulent. Three – it would be hard-pressed for any decent court to entertain the Mingo depravity.
Up to the time of the ruling by the Chief Justice – that Mingo must go back to the table with floodlights shining on the statements of poll – the PNC was united that it will brave the international sanctions and swear in Granger, because GECOM and Mingo will repeat March 4 on March 13. That happened, and thus was born two factions inside the PNC that demarcated the lines to be drawn.
VT, which includes Harmon, was livid that Granger was not sworn in on Saturday night. But Granger didn’t want to be sworn in. Reeling from the criticism of his powerfully placed son-in-law, Dominic Gaskin and the rising crescendo of international voices, Granger became ambivalent about his future as president. Uncertain as to if he will be allowed to govern, if there will be constant domestic and international vexations, if his presidency will survive biting sanctions, and if he will be a figure of derision and hate in the world, Granger found a way out.
Allow CARICOM to revisit the entire national vote and if the PNC loses, it has an acceptable way out. It is possible that someone from GG leaked this option to the Stabroek News, because the paper editorialized on the acceptance of that pathway by Granger. In calling the Barbadian Prime Minister, it seems the die was cast. We refer to this as the Mottley arrangement. But an incendiary cabal emerged in the PNC, with unmitigated hostility to the Mottley pact.
This writer was told voices were screaming against the Mottley arrangement with words like, “let them bring sanction we will face them when they come.” What was born as a reaction to the Mottley arrangement was a ménage à trois in Guyanese politics – VT inside the PNC, four actors in GECOM, and the police force. It is this ménage à trois that is currently derailing the recount at the Arthur Chung Convention Centre (ACCC). What is actually taking place in Guyana right now is a putsch.
Since the sabotage of the ACCC recount, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo addressed the American media and indicated that the fraudulent election will see strong American reaction. These consequences the VT cabal knows about, but will not give in – thus the injunction that stopped the Mottley arrangement yesterday. Here is the likely scenario. Even if the court discharges the injunction, there will be maximum delay of the recount. Introduce emergency measures due to the coronavirus. Postpone the recount. Let the CARICOM team leave. Remain in power. And take it from there.
Right now Granger is an isolated figure in the PNC. It doesn’t seem that many inside his grouping will go for the swearing in, even if the court upholds the injunction against the PPP’s challenge, because they are mortally afraid of international sanctions that will come from the Americans as well as the OAS, Canada and the EU.
One of the weakest fulcrums of GG is that VT is in charge of GECOM, and the police force is taking commands from personalities inside VT. Once VT is fixed on a swearing in, GECOM and the police force will not follow the instructions of GG to resume the ACCC recount.
Guyana is virtually in the grip of a putsch and heading for the precipice, with the Venezuelan military watching with hawkish eyes.
………………………………..
VNM
Major General Singh tells president in open letter
YOU ARE BEING UNSCRUPULOUS OR HAVE LOST CONTROL OF YOUR INNER CIRCLE-
18th March 2020
Major General (retd) Joseph G Singh
An Open Letter to His Excellency President David Granger, MSS
Dear Mr. President
I respectfully pen this open letter to you via the media in the hope that you will realize the national importance I have attached to taking this step. I am placing my neck on the line that you are being manipulated by persons who do not have the best interests of our beloved Guyana at heart and who are prepared to hold you hostage to their own evil intentions and to manipulate you and the Constitution of this country to achieve their own personal and collective goals, unbothered by the catastrophic impact their actions to date are having on national morale, on the fears and anxieties of all Guyanese, whether or not they are supporters of your political party.
If you may have read my earlier letters, you would have noted that I hold no brief for any political party. By choice, I have never voted in any national and regional elections because I pledged to serve my country and not any political party. My loyalty is to the Constitution, and you and all of your predecessors as Presidents and Commanders in Chief knew this and respected me as a professional. How else do you think I was appointed to or held very senior positions in the Armed Forces, then as Chairman of GECOM, as head of Conservation International Guyana, CEO of GTT, Chairman of NAREI, Chairman of the GGMC, Chairman of the Protected Area Trust, and as a non- political Special Assistant to three Presidents, including you Sir, until after having been deemed by you to be not a Fit and Proper Person, as a principle, I chose to resign from all government appointments. I record these things not to beat my own drum but to emphasize that there are certain principles that must be held as sacred if we are to live our lives in unselfish service to our country and to our fellow citizens. You are at the crossroads, where you have to now choose between pampering to a Cabal who bode you no good and who certainly do not have the national interest nor your interest at heart. In their warped, self-centered way, they are manipulating the Constitution, the Supreme Law and their allies in various national institutions and Services of this land, to serve their purposes.
It matters not to me which political party has the majority votes and forms the government. What matters to me, and I am sure to all right-thinking Guyanese, as well as the regional and international community, is that the electoral process reflects the will of the people. A democratically held elections managed through processes that reflect transparency, integrity, and adherence to the rule of law and to the Constitution.
Mr. President, I was puzzled by the fact that an election which, for all intents and purposes, went smoothly on March 2, has degenerated into a witches’ brew of mismanagement by GECOM, misinformation, threats, violence, excessive use of force, manipulation of officers and ranks, and propaganda spun by spin doctors weaving a web of deceit and in which you seem to to be entrapped. The assessments of accredited local, regional and international observers must have been known to you and yet you seemed to shelter under the false premise that because you allowed the GECOM to function without interference, you were somehow absolved of complicity in the deteriorating governance of the electoral process which has made this country the laughing stock of the region, and which is rapidly degenerating into a pariah State in the assessment of those who, rightly or wrongly, are the determinants of what constitutes a failed State.
I was heartened Mr. President, when last Sunday In this Season of Lent, and like Saul on the road to Damascus, you had an epiphany, perhaps finally awakening to the realization, as your courageous son in law Dominic Gaskin did, that something was rotten in the governance of the electoral process and that you needed to act independently and decisively to salvage your legacy and redeem the pride lost. This was acknowledged in the Statement made by the Chair of Caricom on Tuesday, 17 March 2020.
Hon Mia Mottley stated that the fielding of the Caricom Team had been at your request on Saturday, 14 March 2020 and that “its mission was to supervise the recounting of the ballots in Region 4 of the General and Regional Elections of 2 March 2020 in Guyana”. She further stated: “Given that the tabulation process has been widely viewed as not being transparent or credible, President Granger and Mr. Bharrat Jagdeo, Leader of the Opposition, agreed that the only possible solution was by way of a recount supervised by an independent team. This was seen as a significant contribution to bolstering the transparency and legitimacy of the electoral process”.
Not surprisingly, the Chair of Caricom yesterday conveyed to us this telling message: “It is clear that there are forces that do not want to see the votes recounted for whatever reason”. And dramatically, she stated: “Any Government which is sworn in without a credible and fully transparent vote count process would lack legitimacy”.
Mr. President, this statement comes from your colleague the Hon Prime Minister of Barbados and not from some foreign representative of a superpower, whom we seem fond of accusing of interference or of “talking down” to us. In my book, the Chair of Caricom made serious allegations and since you were the one to request the Caricom team to supervise the recounting of the ballots in Region # 4 (subsequently extended to all the ten Districts), I believe we are owed an explanation from you, Sir, as to what conspiracy is afoot that would sabotage your laudable initiative which was agreed to by the Leader of the Opposition and made possible by the Chair of Caricom and her colleagues Heads of Governments, three of whom accompanied her to Guyana to send a strong message of support, care, and concern for our country, a member of the Caricom family, and for the wellbeing of all Guyanese. That such a commendable initiative should be stillborn as a result of an Injunction originating from your own party, sends a worrying message that either you are being Machiavellian or being manipulated, or you have simply lost control over the actions of members of your own inner circle. Whatever may be the reason for this embarrassment to you, to us citizens, and to our country’s image, it is no trivial matter. If the minions who are behind this conspiracy are not identified and excised like a cancerous tumor from the body politic, we will all suffer from the contamination and the penalties we are likely to be faced with are an illegitimate government and being deemed a pariah State.
Mr. President, I have always held you in high esteem as a colleague and friend of nearly six decades. I have forgiven you for classifying me and other nominees for the Chairmanship of GECOM as Not Fit and Proper Persons but I will not forgive you if you fail to do the honorable duty of calling off the Dogs of War, excise them condignly from wherever they are hatching their moves and counter moves. We, long-suffering Guyanese, fooled by mirages of a good life, are hurting, are embarrassed and are angry. Let this poisoned chalice pass Mr. President. If you feel you are boxed in a corner and need reinforcements, then there enough Guyanese of Goodwill and Decency who will rise to the occasion and ensure the recount is completed transparently and with alacrity. Whichever political party is finally declared to have the majority votes, it must be acknowledged as legitimate and be allowed to form the government. Such government must be prepared to govern in the best interests of all Guyanese and with such inclusivity and consensus as will facilitate a sustained process of reforms that all have promised yet failed to deliver to successive generations.
Mr. President, when the Chair of Caricom was about to depart Guyana, she had an engagement with the media in which she stated to all Guyanese that the stability of our country was in the hands of the Returning Officer of District 4. You know only too well what has transpired since that statement. It is now your duty to exercise the leadership responsibilities vested in you and to direct with GECOM, the peaceful and orderly completion of the electoral process by ensuring the mission is accomplished, that is, the agreed recount of all ballots cast in the Guyana 2020 General and Regional Elections, in an environment conducive to security, transparency, integrity and the credibility of the results.
If the mission succeeds, it will be a positive contribution to your legacy. I have high expectations that you will not fail us.
Thank you, Mr President.
Yours sincerely
Joseph G Singh
Major General (retd)
https://bigsmithnewswatch.com/news/you-have-lot-control-of-your-inner-circle-major-general-singh-tells-president-in-open-letter/
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VNM
Simple Simon says
If expectations are high you are disappointed.
Will Guyana be democracy or dictatorship ?
Will United Nations peacekeepers be invited
to “stabilise” the political uncertainty.??
Look into my crystal ball for answers !
Kamtan 🇬🇧🇬🇾🇪🇸🇬🇧👽
Simple Simon says
If expectations are high
You are disappointed
Q
Is Guyana to be democracy or dictatorship ?
Will UN peacekeepers be invited to “stabilise”
things until the political decisions are final.
Disgusting and disastrous for guyanese.
Kamtan 🇬🇧🇬🇾🇪🇸🇬🇧👽
Kamptan! Where were you when the PPP ruled Guyana for 23 years?
Timbuktu !
Outside Guyana ! Ha ha
Was in Guyana from 1944-1962
then again 1967-1975
And visited few times after that.
For me guyana is a failed state.
The oil wealth only compounds the corruption.
…