DEAR EDITOR,
Kindly permit me a space in your letter column to write an open letter to Mr. Freddie Kissoon. For the record, Mr. Kissoon and I are not friends but for the short time I interacted with him, in the past, he was very helpful. Mr. Kissoon had provided me before with sound guidance especially in the Evans Persaud issue I had at University of Guyana and I have no doubt that his opinion will be sound on these questions I wish to seek his opinion on.
Mr. Kissoon, the General and Regional Elections results of March 2, 2020 were declared using Statements of Recount. The Statements of Recount as the world knows were generated from an audit of the Ballot Boxes where serious anomalies, abnormalities and irregularities were unearthed. I, as a recount agent in Recount Station number five (5), saw boxes with no statutory documents to verify the legitimacy of the votes that were found inside. I saw a lot of unsigned oaths of identity. I saw names of persons who I know are dead, ticked off on the Official List of Electors which is an indication that they voted. There were missing poll books which led to there being missing oaths of identity, employment letters and all the events that occurred at the respective polling stations.
I saw a lot of unstamped ballots and what worries me the most was the regular changes GECOM was facilitating during the Recount process as it relates to what actually constitutes a valid vote. Can you believe GECOM validated votes in the first week of the recount that were objected to by counting agents and in the second week ballot papers of similar nature were invalidated? Thousands of votes were counted and thousands were not counted even though they all had the same features. Sir, in your opinion is this Government occupying office on the strength of democracy and considering what is mentioned above, would you say that the will of the Guyanese people is represented in our Government? Can you define rigged elections and how different are rigged elections that you know of from this March 2020 elections?
Mr. Kissoon, I look forward to your writings. Thank you for this space Mr. Editor.
Yours faithfully
Ganesh Mahipaul
