By Vincent Alexander, GECOM Commissioner- I have noted that Press-Shy GECOM has summoned the courage to issue a Press Release, to wit an assertion as to the role of the CARICOM Observer Team in the recount of the 2020 elections results; and a claim that my pronouncement, on the Freddie Kissoon Talk Show, with regards to why information was withheld, from the Observers, is misinformation and baseless.
My first observation is that the Press Release does not refute my contention that the information was not shared with the CARICOM Observers. In fact it seeks to justify why the information was not shared.
In its justification, it contended that the unshared information was irrelevant to the Observers` mandate, which “was only to scrutinise the recount process”. This begs the question as to why in their report the Observers stated that “Much was made of so-called migrant voters (out of jurisdiction) and “phantom voters” but no proof was offered as to the ineligibility of persons who voted;”?
On one hand, they concerned themselves with matters that GECOM contended were beyond their mandate; even as they too confirmed that the information received from the Chief Immigration Officer was not shared with them. In their words “no proof was offered”, when in fact the Chairperson of GECOM was already in possession of the “list of names certified by the Immigration Department of persons who were not in the jurisdiction at the time of the election.” as stated in GECOM`s Press Release.
If GECOM`s contention about the mandate of the Observer Mission is that they were “only to scrutinize the recount process” and as a consequence GECOM withheld information which could have been made available to the Observer Mission, it behoved GECOM to publicly clarify that matter, rather than have every Tom, Dick, Harry and the PPP, in particular, reference the CARICOM report as their truth that no such evidence existed. In this regard, the Chairperson of GECOM has to take responsibility for the situation, in any circumstance, and not seek to deflect that responsibility for wrongly referencing the Order 60 and a High Court Judgement as the bases for not sharing the information with the Observer Mission, while remaining silent and allowing Tom, Dick, Harry and the PPP to use the dire consequence of her omission as the basis for contending that no such evidence exists.
It should also be noted that the Chairperson who requested the Chief Immigration Officer to verify the allegations, which verification was received, subsequently refused to act on the information on the grounds that such information could only be used in a Petition.
Indeed, such information may be used in a Petition. However, she also refused to use the information in an evaluation exercise to interrogate GECOM`s systems with the intent of determining whether there are weaknesses and or loop-holes that can be plugged in GECOM`s pursuit to deliver free and fair elections. Instead, the Chairpersons through GECOM`s Public Relations Officer overcame GECOM`s Press-Shyness to misinform the public about the realities of the withholding of information; or to clarify the uninformed conclusion that the Observer Mission came to because the available information was not disclosed to them.