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Justice delayed is justice denied. Almost three years since officials of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) were charged there has been no ruling.
Society remains unconvinced the charges brought against these officials were intended to get to the bottom of what transpired in the 2020 General and Regional Elections and to hold accountable those responsible for any violation of our electoral laws.
Only those who refuse to accept the truth would ignore that the 2020 Election results are badly tainted. Some have argued because of the massive fraud exposed during the recount the election should have been cancelled (or not declared) and a political arrangement made between the two major political forces to govern in the meantime as the citizens return to the poll with a sanitised Voters List, given it size of approximately 660,000 electors in population of approximately 750,000.
Less than a month since GECOM made its declaration, what some thought during the election saga were idle threats by the PPP/C to jail GECOM staff, public servants and their family who helped the Coalition as well as marking the face of policewomen to put them out of a job, were obviously not empty threats.
Criminal charges were brought against GECOM staffers-Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield, Deputy Chief Elections Officer Roxanne Myers, Region Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo, Carolyn Mikhaik Duncan, Michelle Miller and Sheffern February, and Opposition Member of Parliament Volda Lawrence.
It is not lost on society that the efforts to go after the named persons have seen no effort to charge the Presiding Officers and Returning Officers of the lower East Coast Demerara, where more than 40 ballot boxes were found with no statutory documents. It is not lost on society that this is a stronghold of the PPP/C and the government seemingly has no interest in having the Police conduct an investigation in this part of Region Four.
It is not lost on the honest in our midst that during the recount process evidence revealed people voted without any form of identification, oaths of identity were missing, there were more votes than electors in some ballot boxes, to name some of the hundreds of anomalies unearthed.
It is also not lost on society that the government has little or no interest in bringing judicial resolution to the matter, three years later.
Sections of society, not without merit, see these charges as a political stunt, targeting a selective few with the intent of creating a smokescreen to divert attention from the massive fraud unearthed and the credibility of election results that has resulted in a change in government.
Undoubtedly fraud is fraud. No decent society would have supported, or its election authority declared any result knowing full well they are fraudulent votes without taking them away from the final count. No progressive society will want to associate with blatantly fraudulent count as an expression of the will of the people.
That above being said, the matters in the court against the named individuals must move to trial, forthwith.
