GUYANA has a terrible history of rigged elections, with the PPP being consistently robbed at the polls. This occurred during the much-touted ‘first free-and-fair elections’ of 1992, Dr. Cheddi Jagan himself attesting to his knowledge of this fact.It happened again in the elections of November 2011, and it is hardly likely that the PPP/C head honchos are unaware of the nightmare that would ensue if any election – local or general — is called without that party putting systems in place to protect its constituency and ensure that the final count is reflective of real voting, instead of the manipulation of a flawed system that lends itself to tinkering by parties with vested interests, and even by GECOM officials.

The UN-funded Elections Assistance Bureau (EAB) is headed by WPA member Fr. Malcolm Rodrigues, and the members of the ABC diplomatic community, overtly and covertly supportive of the opposition parties, have been openly defiant and critical of the Government; with the British High Commissioner joining with APNU/AFC street protesters post-2011 elections; the statement about State corruption made by the Canadian diplomat; and the current imbroglio with the Government and US Ambassador Brent Hardt being cases in point.

All signs indicate that mischief is afoot, and the PPP/C would be failing in its charge by founding father Dr. Cheddi Jagan if it goes tamely into an election configuration that lends itself to rigging by the opposition. The PPP/C had to concede its parliamentary majority despite being aware that it was being blatantly robbed at the last elections.

The consequences have been horrific to this nation, with gridlock in Parliament consistently catapulting this nation’s development dynamics on a downward spiral and threatening to plunge this country into an economic nightmare with the non-passage of the amended AML/CFT Bill; and with the nation’s socio-economic wellbeing being held hostage by an opportunistic, power-hungry opposition combo.

In the Old Testament, when two women claimed motherhood for one child, wise King Solomon ordered his guards to cut the child in halves and give each claimant a half; whereupon one woman immediately rescinded her claim, thereby giving the other total ownership of the baby, in order to save the child’s life. Her selfless sacrifice emerged from a heart full of the boundless love of a real mother, unlike the second woman who was prepared to see the child destroyed rather than admit that she was a false claimant.

In like manner, when the PPP/C withdrew its request for a recount of votes following certain questionable activities by some GECOM returning officers in former PNC strongholds, such as South Georgetown; and there had been non-submission of ballot boxes from 19 polling stations in a PPP stronghold, that party acted as it did knowing quite well that it was risking its parliamentary majority; but peace in the nation has historically been of more importance to the PPP/C than control of the reins of power; and the PNCR was strategically looking for any ploy to create chaos in the land, in efforts to wrest power from the PPP/C in what they have termed a “velvet revolution in an Arab-spring”.

Indeed, the troops had already been amassed, and were ready to take to the streets, with the usual dire consequences to PPP supporters and the business community being collateral damage.

In an interview with the Guyana Chronicle, President Donald Ramotar admitted that the PPP/C leadership knew, from the reports coming in from its polling agents, that the party had amassed a minimum of 53% at the polls, and its decades of experience provided it with the logistics to determine accuracy to the nth degree; thus the results coming out of GECOM did not tally with the party count, which had always been accurate in the past during elections held under its watch.

The 2011 election was rigged, and incidences that occurred at several polling stations where that party’s polling agents had been bodily ejected generated the realisation – too late — that the election results were being rigged, and certainly not by the PPP/C.

Commenting on this issue, as posited by Chronicle, the President responded: “I think you’re right on that score. They did a lot of wicked things in South Georgetown and some other areas, where they created an atmosphere not to have any PPP/C polling agents around; and they managed to get them out by terrible hostility and threatening violence and so on. I think also that you’re right again, and that they penetrated GECOM and controlled (to some extent) the elections machinery, where they were not even taking instructions from the Chairman or the Chief Elections Officer, and they were doing a lot of manipulation at that point in time.

“Even with the counting, I understand that they kept people far away, so that they could not see what was happening. That was confirmed to me by independent observers. So you are right, I think that there was some level of manipulation on the part of the opposition.”

As usual, the Opposition threatened the peace in the country if the PPP/C did not withdraw its request for a recount, especially since that party was aware that votes at nineteen polling stations in a PPP stronghold had not been counted.

Without divulging all the reasons for the PPP/C’s withdrawal of its rightful request for a recount of the results from the polling stations involved, President Ramotar revealed that, among the reasons for this withdrawal was the latent threat to peace and stability in the country. He said, “We were told…We wanted to ensure that there was no breakout of violence, because we think that would have held back our country if we went down that road. As far as the development of Guyana was concerned, it would have had a very negative effect; and so we chose, at that point in time, to call off the recount. But that was not the only reason.”

Asked whether he is convinced that the PPP/C was robbed, based on his decades of experience of elections in Guyana, the President responded: “For sure! I think we had over 50%. I think we lost some votes, no doubt, but I don’t think we lost enough to bring us under 50%; but the results were through manipulation.

“My own realistic assessment was that we had probably between 52 – 53%.”

Nevertheless, in the interest of the nation, and in the tradition of the PPP, the President expressed willingness and made overtures to work with all the opposition parties towards a cohesive society and optimal development in the country, whereby every Guyanese continues to benefit equitably from the nation’s resources under the administrative watch of the PPP/C in Government.

However, despite the President’s efforts toward consensual decision-making through a tripartite arrangement suggested by the PPP/C, the opposition collective is still engaged in games of one-upmanship, even while its supporters are marching on the streets and mounting protest actions over one pretext after another, keeping PPP/C supporters and the business community on tenterhooks in wondering when these groups would break out into their customary destructive violence.

Based on the foregoing, it is hardly likely that the now forewarned PPP/C would not put in place systems to protect the country and its constituents from any form of manipulation of electoral processes in conformity with imperative exigencies.