Chairman of the People’s National Congress, Volda Lawrence, is once more being targeted by the police. Today, she visited the police force Criminal Investigations Department ostensibly for questioning into purported electoral irregularities.
She was accompanied by Attorney at Law Nigel Hughes. When she arrived, the investigating ranks were not there so a female rank placed her under arrest.
Mr. Hughes said that the rank invited her to hand over her possession to the attorney for safe-keeping. He said that from all appearances, the plan was to detain Ms. Lawrence.
He said that the offences for which she was arrested stemmed from what happened at the Ashmin building last March. She was accused of attempting to declare a fraudulent electoral result. There was the fear that she would have been subjected to the same treatment as Deputy Chief Elections Officer, Roxanne Myers.
Attorney Hughes was forced to leave her there to return within the hour. And he did return. And while she was in custody there were comments denouncing her detention. Mayor Yuvraj Narine was one of the people who gathered outside the CID, at Eve Leary.
“This needs to end. This here is going down a bad road for this country and I hope the PPP administration knows that what they are doing can divide this country, not for one year or two years, but for a very long time.”
Mayor Narine said that the municipality believes that the government is discriminating against certain people.
He said that recognizing the need for unity, the Coalition had established a Ministry of Social Cohesion. That has been abandoned.
“Mr. Lowenfield, Ms. (Roxanne) Myers, (Clairmont) Mingo, Carol Joseph, Livan; all these people are Afro-Guyanese. I cannot see the Chairman of GECOM sitting in her office very quietly and allowing this nonsense to happen in GECOM.”
Some of the other people outside the CID Headquarters were incensed. “I want Caesar, Blanhum and (Police Commissioner) Hoppie to know that if they can’t stop this nonsense where Afro-Guyanese are concerned it wouldn’t have a Guyana. We are not going to stand up and take it.”
Deputy Mayor Alfred Mentore said that he fears an escalation of the situation. “It will get out of hand if we continue like this, marginalizing and victimizing people especially people who were formerly in high office. We are going down a bad road.
“This kind of situation is not what is best for the people of Guyana at particular time.”
Former Housing Minister Annette Ferguson said, “They are taking us back to what transpired on March 2, 2020. We knew what transpired after March 2, 2020.
“The Statements of Recount would have superseded the Statements of Poll. The PPP came to government by illegal means after all those invalid votes, the documents that would have derived those ballots that were not found.
“I worked on the recount and I know exactly what I saw coming out from those boxes. Dead people voted, missing statutory documents, people’s names that were not supposed to be on the list were written in.
“This was prevalent in District Six. You had Oaths of Identity for those persons. Who were the real fraudsters?”
She said that the arrests are a move to take the minds of Guyanese from the fraud that was discovered during the recount. However, no charges seem to be levelled against those fraudsters.
“I am really upset with what the Guyana Police Force has now become. It has now become a political tool for the People’s Progressive Party. And I know many of these police officers are not in agreement with some of their colleagues are doing.”
Ms. Lawrence was not charged today but she was asked to post $100,000 station bail. And this is unusual for someone who held executive office. Usually such people are released on their own recognizance.
