The recount of all votes cast in the March 2, 2020 elections in Guyana, South America continues today, May 13, 2020. At the end of today, 56 more boxes were completed. Once again, the day did not pass incident-free.
To begin with, the police was called in after an Elections Commissioner, Robeson Benn, was accused of assaulting a doctor at the Arthur Chung Convention Center today. The doctor was working with the COVID-19 task force and was reportedly trying to check the temperature of Mr. Benn.
Mr. Benn posted the following explanation on his Facebook Page today:
I, hereby, categorically deny allegations now appearing in social media that I “assaulted” a medical staff at the Convention Center today!
The medical person approached me to do a temperature check. I started to show her my morning test results which I had forwarded to me as a WhatsApp photo, done as precautionary information! While trying to display the photo she pointed her instrument to the side of my right temple and I involuntarily pushed her hand aside!!
She looked at the photo then took my temperature which, on this occasion, accorded with my results!! On leaving she said that I was “..unprofessional in pushing “ her hand away!
I retorted that they were being used unprofessionally!
It is perhaps not surprising that a simple issue is being escalated to the extreme in our current circumstances! And to hold out an opportunity to have me removed from the Recount Process. – May 13th, 2020
Head of the OAS International Observer Mission to Guyana and former Prime Minister of Jamaica, Mr. Bruce Golding, issued a damning statement against the returning officer of Region, Mr. Clairmont Mingo – who was accused of attempting to rig the March 2, 2020 elections. Mr. Golding said:
“I have never seen a more transparent effort to alter the results of an elections. More than a dozen copies of the Statements of Poll are prepared at each polling stations after the ballots are counted… it takes an extraordinary and courageous mind to present fictitious numbers when such a sturdy paper trail exists.”
In addition, US Senator Marco Rubio and several other high level US officials, in a written letter dated May 12, 2020, urged Mr. David Granger to respect the results of the recount. This comes in the midst of the APNU/AFC team trumping up allegations of a flawed electoral process with baseless allegations of dead and migrated persons voting – an election for which they, the APNU/AFC, had earlier claimed victory. Read Letter….
