Dear Editor,

THE recent March 2, 2020 polls dubbed the “Mother of all Elections” proved to all Guyanese, now more than ever, that our already fragile electoral system is flawed and is overdue for reform.
It is known that regularly held, free and fair elections is the hallmark of a democratic State and as such, facilitates the implementation of sound democratic practices. In that regard, I find it prudent to put on record, that in my view, democracy is alive and well in Guyana and was never under threat. My view emanates from the fact that, in light of all the irregularities that were uncovered during this election cycle, every aggrieved person was given a fair hearing before the courts to bring redress to their concerns.

Nevertheless, it is now proven fact that elections in Guyana are done wrong. The simple interpretation of democracy is majority rule. However, Article 177 (2)(b) of our Constitution, states “if more votes are cast in favour of the list…”. This Article, in my estimation perpetuates and gives legal credence to the ‘winner takes all’ attitude of any sitting government in Guyana and as such, during every election cycle there is an overwhelming feeling of an US vs. THEM atmosphere.

The Article would be better worded if it stated “if the majority of votes are cast in favour of the list…” which would therefore underscore the democratic principle of majority rule.
Mr. Editor, it would be remiss of any Guyanese to deny the fact that a bloated voters’ list and our mostly, two-party electoral system was the source of many of the issues we experienced during this election cycle. I stand by this belief and I will not falter.

The undeniable, fundamental and inherent problem with our electoral system is the principle that only one person can win, and that said winner takes all i.e. you either win everything or you lose everything. There is no ‘in-between’. And as result of this, there is an unquestionable fear and hatred for the other party, when it comes to Guyana’s two political behemoths, the APNU+AFC and the PPP/C. This fear and hatred is the most powerful force in our politics today. It is known as “Negative Partisanship” and for such a small society like Guyana, it’s worrying and disheartening for a young Guyanese, like myself, to witness our political leaders willfully take advantage of this negative partisanship to secure their bid to hold the seat of government by any means necessary. It is because of this electoral ideology (winner takes all), that the “mother of all elections” was tainted by an astronomical number of cases of electoral fraud. There is no denying that the “winner takes all” outcome, encourages and rewards illegal activities at the polls.
Upon the discovery of the fraud, the two parties attacked each other relentlessly, and as such widened the existing political divide in Guyana, thereby legitimising the “winner takes all” outcome. Evidently, it’s easier to have people rally against something, than come out in support of what they believe and over the years, by doing this we have degraded Guyana’s democracy. 2020 has really shown how divided we are as a society.

Taking all of the above into consideration, the question of a viable third party as an option to bring some balance to the consequences of winner takes all, arises. And to that I say, any viable third-party option in Guyana’s current political terrain will need broad political appeal. Because most voters in Guyana are so engrained in this two party system (PPP/C v APNU+AFC) we most times vote for the party that we think can win and, in most cases, the leaders of said party are of a particular ethnic makeup that is similar to that of the voter.
Guyanese rarely vote for candidates who reflect their values and as such compromise on same because they want to vote for a party that can win. Don’t believe me? Think about how we, as fellow citizens, reacted to someone who voted for one of the small parties during the 2020 elections. Depending on our political loyalties, we either labelled that person as a PPP/C supporter or an APNU+AFC supporter (if they didn’t vote for us, they are against us). We ultimately labelled the votes of such voters as wasted votes, because they voted for a party that has no chance of winning the elections. And that Mr. Editor is as a result of winner takes all elections. “We just need to beat the other party. Policy concerns, your views and values (that of the voters) will matter after we get into government, so compromise on those for now and vote for us”. This is the attitude of both of the major political parties, towards their base.
Mr. Editor, permit me to quote the late John Adams, Second President of the US, “the division of a country into two great political parties… is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil….” It is with this in mind, that I wish to highlight a possible solution to fix our inherent problem of winner takes all elections i.e. Ranked Choice Voting.
According to Time Magazine (Politics & Election, November 2019), Ranked Choice Voting is an electoral system which allows voters to rank candidates by preference, meaning they can submit ballots that list not only their first-choice candidate for a position, but also their second, third and so on.

How does it work? The candidate with the majority (more than 50 per cent) of first-choice votes wins outright. If no candidate gets a majority of first-choice votes, then it triggers a new counting process. The candidate who did the worst is eliminated, and that candidate’s voters’ ballots are redistributed to their second-choice pick. In other words, if you ranked a losing candidate as your first choice, and the candidate is eliminated, then your vote still counts: it just moves to your second-choice candidate. That process continues until there is a candidate who has the majority of votes. This would be great for Guyanese voters because we would be able to vote our conscience and not just vote to beat the other party.
If the above were to materialise, the two major parties would have to reach out to all voters and not just the swing voters. By doing this, as a result of Ranked Choice Voting, Negative Partisanship goes away and can no longer be a viable strategy to get voters out to the polls. Political parties will have to work together to appeal to voters and not pit them (the voters) against each other (us v them/APNU+AFC v PPP/C, TCI v LJP or ANUG v TNM and so forth). Through this process there are no “wasted votes” and small political parties will ultimately be able to grow.

Ranked Choice Voting is just one possible solution and it is a long-term solution to Guyana’s unsustainable political terrain. The implementation of any electoral reform solution calls for great political will and political maturity from both the government and the combined opposition.
Mr. Editor, in light of everything I’ve opined in this letter and based on my observations of the 2020 elections, the PPP/C Government and the combined opposition of ANUG, TNM, LJP and APNU+AFC, owe it to the Guyanese electors to ensure that we have electoral reform and by extension constitutional reform. This needs to be done, to ensure that the credibility of our elections is never again questioned by internal or external forces and no voter feels like they’ve lost or is aggrieved by winner takes all. Because no matter the result, Ranked Choice Voting presents the majority outcome, based on the order of the voters preferred/ranked candidate.
Our society must never again experience the unprecedented levels of distress, anxiety, hostility, and uncertainty, created by the understandably, lengthy processing of the 2020 General and Regional Elections.

Sincerely,
Trevon Sampson
A concerned Guyanese, who is begging for major electoral reform