How Mark Benschop tried to trick Congresswoman Yvette Clarke into taking sides in Guyana’s election

Earlier this evening, Mark Benschop had New York City Congresswoman Yvette Clarke as the first guest on his 107.1FM radio talk show.

Prior to Clarke joining the programme via phone / Zoom [Benschop told listeners she was rushing from one meeting to the next], the host made the following opening comments.

Bear in mind that these comments were made without the Congresswoman having the benefit of hearing them: 

Mark Benschop

“You have heard a lot of things about the outcome of the recount process, the thousands of dead votes, people who died and suddenly just walked out of their tombs and they voted in the March 2nd general and regional elections.

As we await the CEO, that is the Chief Executive Officer of GECOM to present his report to the Chairman of GECOM who is expected to make her decision, they will render a decision as to the way forward.

Are we gonna have fresh elections, which is what I’m seeing all over social media? People are asking, people are talking about fresh elections. It sounds like a great idea if you ask me. Fresh elections, that is what people are talking about. It might be a good thing for Guyana.

But what is not a good thing for Guyana is the tabulation of the recount, votes that include dead people voting and all these different, different things. We just cannot have that at all. And that is what the PPP wants. The PPP wants all those dead votes to be tabulated and that is why they rushed out, they rushed out and they’re jumping on the mountain top to say that they have won the election.

The evidence doesn’t point to them winning the elections, what points to them at this point in time is they are ahead in terms of votes after the recount process. But that doesn’t say that they have won the elections, because you cannot tabulate dead people, thousands of irregularities, thousands of questionable votes, amount to over 25, 30, 50 , 60,000. I don’t know the exact amount, but the PPP is claiming that they’re ahead by 15,000 votes.

That is just a handful of the corrupt votes that are in the boxes. And so, any sensible person would conclude that that is not the end. You cannot declare results like that at all, tainted results.

I don’t know who the PPP is fooling, but you just cannot, you cannot declare an election as being credible with those questionable votes. So it is now up to GECOM to decide as to the way forward. We don’t know what is going to be in that report by the Chief Executive Officer, we just don’t know as yet, we cannot jump ahead.” 

It was after Benschop made the above comments that Clarke joined the programme.

There was a lengthy discussion about the upcoming primaries in the United States, Clarke’s work on the issues of immigration reform, the HOME Act, her Caribbean background, to name a few.

Benschop then asked Clarke about her visit to Guyana in January, which she reiterated was  to convey support for free, fair, and fully democratic elections on March 2, 2020.

“We understand that there has been a struggle getting the ultimate results,” Clarke said.

“I have maintained a monitoring posture, wanna make sure that of course the process that is being conducted by GECOM is not interfered with in any way so that people can trust the results of this election.”

Here’s where Benschop tried to set the trap.

Responding to the above comment from Clarke, Benschop continued:

“And I think that’s what people want, to be able to trust the results and allow GECOM to do its job without any sort of interference.

“Quickly, whilst we are not only on Guyana elections, we are dealing with your reelection here as well — you wouldn’t want the results of any elections to include fraudulent votes, you think that would be fair to a country or to a people, a constituency?”

Even though Clarke had not heard Benschop’s opening comments, she did not take the bait.

This was the Congresswoman’s response:

“Absolutely not, of course not. You know it goes to the heart of democratic values, right. At the end of the day, we must be able to trust in the democratic process. Without having transparency and trust in that process, you’re slipping further and further away from a mature democracy. That’s part of the challenge that we are facing here in the United States. You may recall that the House of Representatives actually impeached Donald Trump for his behaviour by trying to get the leadership of Ukraine to try to manufacture information about Joe Biden. And so we have to deal with maintaining democratic values here and that means that it’s worth the battle and worth the fight because when the people are governing themselves, that is the ultimate freedom of a democracy.”