Last Friday Mr. Vishnu Persaud, Chief Elections Officer (CEO), of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) appeared before the Commission of Inquiry (COI) into the March 2020 General and Regional Elections and made some stunning revelations to the panel.
Commissioners Justices Stanley John, Carl Singh, and Godfrey Smith, SC, were told GECOM cannot locate the cameras that were installed in the Ashmin’s building for the elections nor the recordings. The Ashmin’s building, located at Hadfield and High Streets, Georgetown, was used as the Office of Region Four (Demerara –Mahaica), Returning Officer to tabulate the polls for the region.
The commission was advised former CEO Keith Lowenfield had given instructions for the cameras to be installed. However, according to Persaud, “no one knows when the cameras were removed or where the footage might be.” The COI was also told the computers were wiped clean. All these, according to the CEO, happened without his knowledge. The CEO has responsibility for GECOM’s records.
However, Mr. Mark Benschop, host of the ‘Straight Up’ programme, criminologist and social activist, views the disappearance of these vital equipment and data ominous and highly suspect. According to him if GECOM cannot find such vital assets Guyanese should also be worried if the court asks for the Statements of Poll lodged at the Registry a similar excuse could be forthcoming.
Benschop also feels there is more to the story than claiming loss of vital information, which he said is not carelessness but deliberate, and for a reason. When asked to elaborate, the social activist said Guyanese could remember the storming of Ashmin’s building because the aggression and lawlessness that took place there are seared in minds as though they occurred yesterday.
He believes the only incident that came closest to what happened to the invasion of Ashmin’s was the storming of the United States Capitol Building on January 6, 2021 to prevent the Congress from certifying the votes to declare Joe Biden the 46th President. Benschop said those who watched the storming of Ashmin’s remember many of the faces and persons involved.
“Those persons have been installed in government and would not want evidence of their lawlessness to be replayed in the media and for the eyes of the two foreign commissioners.”
According to the social activist, the (People’s Progressive Party) PPP has more to benefit with the disappearance of evidence that could implicate them and also from the court throwing out the election petitions that could expose them. The PPP was not an innocent bystander in the rigging of the 2020 General and Regional Elections, he asserts.
“I hope the two commissioners would ensure in their report they seriously address the convenient disappearance of evidence as the Caribbean Court of Justice did with Anil Nandlall leaking information of the ruling before the judgment was delivered.”
Benschop said he sees similarities in the two incidents.
“Both in the Nandlall and Bisram’s cases they are showing off how lying and cheating could be rewarded. One before a COI saying the evidence can’t be found, and the other putting the evidence on his personal Facebook, and when caught, blaming it on a fake administrator of his page.”
Guyanese are not fooled nor are they fools, he said.
