When the US Government threatened to take away visas of senior members of the Guyana Government and the senior managers of GECOM because of the attempted theft of the March 2, 2020 election and the subversion of the will of the Guyanese people, Guyana was disgraced. The cabal that was trying to repeat election skullduggery like the ones that occurred in 1968, 1973, 1978, 1980 and 1985 brought shame to our country. Today some of these people are before the courts charged with fraud and conspiracy to defraud the Guyanese people. Nigel Hughes is the lead lawyer trying hard to delay the trials.
The Guyanese people deserve better. Indeed, “better must come”. The PNC, the AFC, the WPA and other one-man political parties were responsible for the 2020 election debacle. Should they not apologize? Are people like Nigel Hughes going to continue to insult the intelligence of the Guyanese people by continuing to deny what is so obvious to all? Really, seriously, Nigel Hughes cannot be serious when he told reporters he is not aware what the AFC should apologize for. The reporters may not want to answer him, but the Guyanese people would like to let him know – “Better Must Come”.
It is reprehensible that Nigel Hughes, the leader of the AFC, sees no reason why his party needs to apologize for its action in the shameful, disgraceful attempt to rig the results of the March 2020 elections. Bruce Golding, the former Prime Minister of Jamaica, who headed the Organization of American States (OAS) Observer Team said he never saw a more transparent attempt to alter the results of an election. Its leaders at the time, like Moses Nagamootoo, Khemraj Ramjattan, Raphael Trotman, Cathy Hughes, David Patterson, Sherod Duncan all played roles in the rigging attempt.
Every international observer group, including the OAS team led by Prime Minister Golding of Jamaica, the Commonwealth Observer Team led by the late former Prime Minister Owen Arthur of Barbados, the Carter Center, a UN Observer Team, the CARICOM Observer Team, bluntly rejected the overt and in-plain-sight attempt to thief the elections. All the observer teams, including the local observer teams condemned the conspiracy by the GECOM managers with overt support from the APNU/AFC Government to thief the elections.
Prime Minister Gonsalves savagely rebuked APNU/AFC’s disgraceful and clumsy attempt to thief the elections by calling on them to “take their licks like a man”. Prime Minister Mia Mottley referred to the evil conspiracy and indicted APNU/AFC.
The five-months long saga of an attempted steal traumatized the Guyanese people. Even their own supporters condemned them and refused to take to the streets. One of their own ministers, a senior leader of the AFC, Dominick Gaskin, publicly rebuked his party and his government for their efforts to thief the elections.
Yet Nigel Hughes sees nothing that the AFC did that deserves an apology. It is the reason why already faithful supporters of the AFC have abandoned them with the refrain “better must come”. It is the reason why the AFC does not dare go to the polls by themselves because they will be disgraced. As their supporters pick up their red shirts and grab the cup on their way to join the PPP bandwagon, they tease their former leaders by screaming at them “better must come”.
As the rigging strategy began to emerge soon after the March 2, 2020 elections, the presence of the observers became an inconvenient nuisance for APNU/AFC. The APNU/AFC Government wanted the observers out of the country. They sent the foreign affairs minister, Karen Cummings, to threaten the observers with taking away their credentials. She was visibly shaken when Prime Minister Owen Arthur publicly volunteered to hand in his credentials telling her he and his fellow observers will not be intimidated. The whole world was watching the nonsense, as once again the PNC-led APNU/AFC Government disgraced the Guyanese people.
When the PNC-led APNU/AFC government was forced to agree to a recount during their disgraceful attempt to thief the March 2020 elections, they denied entry for international observers, including the world-renowned Carter Center, to observe the recount. It was a despicable act. The AFC was part of the government that was responsible for this reprehensible act. They have never apologized for this.
The story of the attempted rigging of the March 2020 elections was not merely the events of the five-month long efforts by the PNC-led APNU/AFC to alter the results of the elections. The rigging process started long before the actual elections. One of the shameful actions took place soon after the successful No-Confidence Motion (NCM) against the government in December 2018. In the clumsy effort to reverse the results of that NCM, the PNC-led APNU/AFC claimed that 33 was not the majority of 65.
The mathematics genius in this case was Nigel Hughes, now the leader of the AFC. All the participants in that sordid affair, including the PNC, the AFC, the WPA and all the other one-man political parties that were part of the APNU/AFC coalition disgraced Guyana by putting us on a world stage and made us appear as if a whole nation was mathematically challenged. We needed the Caribbean Court of Justice to tell us that 33 is the majority of 65, no matter how bravely Moses Nagamootoo tried to justify the travesty with his half-bottle and quarter-bottle rum story.
The desperation that forced them to utilize voodoo mathematics to pervert the simple equation of 33 as the majority of 65 followed the attempt to get the Speaker of the National Assembly, Dr. Bartland Scotland to interrupt the voting during the parliamentary sitting for the No-Confidence Motion, and having failed to get the speaker to be a part of their bizarre and illegal behavior, they forced him to reconvene the “dead” parliament to reopen the sitting with a replacement MP for the MP that voted for the No Confidence Motion.
Really, seriously, Nigel Hughes, you are not aware of the many things the AFC needs to apologize for?
But even before that, in June 2018, David Granger violated the constitution and arbitrarily appointed 81-year-old James Patterson as GECOM’s Chair. The CCJ had to intervene and stop the deliberate violation of the constitution. David Granger had not gone rogue and acted alone. He was part of a machinery that included the AFC. Indeed, several leaders of the AFC publicly tried to justify the appointment of James Patterson. Would Raphael Trotman be able to deny this fact? Nigel Hughes does not know this story?
Many of the AFC leaders insisted APNU/AFC’s Statements of Poll were proof of them winning the elections. Many of them at the time claimed they had seen the SOPs. But up to today they have not shown anyone their copies of the SOPs. One of them, Cathy Hughes, in court now admits that she did not see the SOPs. Why has the PNC-led APNU/AFC hidden their SOPs like Fort Knox hides gold bars? That AFC leaders insisted initially that they won the elections based on their copies of the SOPs when, in fact, they were lying because they either never saw their copies of the SOPs or they saw them and lied about the results is reprehensible and a betrayal of the Guyanese people, especially their own supporters. Should the AFC not apologize for this dishonesty?
As the rigging strategy began to emerge soon after the March 2, 2020 elections, two AFC leaders, Khemraj Ramjattan and Cathy Hughes, held a press conference and informed the nation that they caught four Russians in the country who came to Guyana to use sophisticated technology to hack the elections results. That no one can hack a paper-based electoral system did not matter in their story-telling. They claimed that three of the Russians were caught and deported and that one of them managed to escape with the equipment. More recently, Ramjattan dug in his heels in the lie by insisting the men were caught “talking” Russian with Bharat Jagdeo. This was an insult to the intelligence of the Guyanese people. Their own supporters laughed at the ridiculous story. Is it not high time that the AFC apologize to the Guyanese people?
When Keith Lowenfield, the then-chief elections officer, who now is in front of the courts for conspiracy to defraud the Guyanese people their votes, tried to disenfranchise the Guyanese people their constitutional right by deciding to discard their votes in the tallying of results, where was the AFC? When Mingo discarded the use of SOPs to verify the results and tally the votes, where exactly was the AFC? When Mingo used a bedsheet to reflect a fake spreadsheet instead of using actual SOPs, where was the AFC? They have no reason now to apologize for allowing this travesty? Lowenfield and Mingo were supported in this crime by the PNC/AFC GECOM representatives. Seriously, Nigel Hughes is not aware why the AFC need to apologize?
When Misenga Jones was recruited to ask the court to have the recount figures discarded and Mingo’s original false declaration for Region 4 used for the preparation of Lowenfield’s report where was the AFC? Did they not know how and why Jones was recruited to add to the trauma the Guyanese people were being forced to endure? Still Hughes is not aware why the AFC must apologize?
APNU/AFC used COVID-19 as an excuse to delay the recount when they insisted the Convention Center had to be disinfected. These are just a short list of a much longer list of atrocities the AFC need to apologize for. It is sheer dishonesty for Hughes to insist there is nothing to apologize for. Such dishonesty is why the AFC is “dead meat”, exactly as Khemraj Ramjattan had predicted. His prophecy came through a long time ago.