“Fake email” on governing coalition’s campaign strategy to regain political support- Basil Williams

Last Updated on Tuesday, 20 June 2017, 20:51 by Denis Chabrol

Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Basil Williams Tuesday evening rejected as “out of hand” the fake email being circulated whilst he was in Cabinet, purportedly authored by him.

One of the purported screen-shot email from one Basil Williams allegedly to addressees Joseph Harmon, Amna Ally, Winston Felix and Raphael Trotman states that the Re-Election Committee (REEC) has decided to temporarily roll back some of the budget measures and relax the 2PM party curfew and host a series of entertainment shows with foreign artistes to win back support especially from youth. “REEC believes that this will help to motivate the younger voting population,” the email states.

The Attorney General (AG) says that the email is another wicked and desperate attempt by the Opposition People’s Progressive Party/Civic to deflect from the recent exposure of its failure in the National Assembly.  “The email in circulation is not mine that is, Non est factum. Don’t use me to change conversations, I can make my own news,” the Attorney General was quoted as saying.

Williams said that from his own investigations the email address purporting to be his was recently created. “There is an uppercase B in the fake email however his email was created with a lowercase b for basil. Furthermore the fake email’s inbox revealed four (4), while   AG’s email inbox has around one thousand (1000). Efforts are being made to verify in whose name it is registered.”

Additionally Mr. Raphael Trotman is not a member of the Peoples National Congress Reform (PNCR), the Attorney General said. The purported correspondence, however, reported on the “new faces” that Trotman’s Alliance For Change (AFC) has been getting in the Indian and Amerindian communities as well as some religious and youth leaders.

One of the  purported recommendations emerging from the April 27 REECE meeting is for Vishnu Bandhu and a youth party to be supported in their electoral efforts because that would potentially lead to a PPP defeat. “They may even form a youth party. It therefore believes that we must support such efforts to split the PPP votes.”

The email further states that the party should continue propagandizing  that it inherited an empty treasury and that the main opposition People’s Progressive Party is racist because the evidence shows that those strategies have worked well in the past.

In apparent reference to the appeal to the Caribbean Court of Justice against a Guyana Court of Appeal ruling that Guyana’s constitutional amendment to provide for presidential term limit is unconstitutional, a second screen-shot email purportedly from Williams to Felix seeks to assure that efforts were being made to slow down the heairng of the appeal at the regional court.

Guyana’s next general elections are scheduled for 2020.

Williams is the PNCR’s Chairman and Felix was the APNU’s campaign manager at the last general elections.