PRE and post-elections 2020 in Guyana created such turmoil in the land that law-abiding citizens feared no declaration would have been made; a state of emergency would have been called, allowing de facto president, David Granger to have been sworn in as president, and dictatorship, undemocratic rule and anarchy would have prevailed in Guyana.

The synergy in Guyana’s socio-political landscape post-2020 elections was reminiscent of the earlier days when the Patriotic Coalition for Democracy (PCD) was established, with all stakeholders joining forces against the despotic, dictatorial PNC regime.

All observers, then President Granger and members of his Cabinet, as well as GECOM Chairwoman Justice (R’td) Claudette Singh declared the 2020 elections free and fair, and conducted within constitutional boundaries. The Statements of Poll were posted outside every polling station, and provided to every contesting party and GECOM, so within hours of the closing of polls, every contesting political party knew who had won the elections, and by what numbers.

However, while declarations of every Region, except Region Four were conducted in an orderly manner, and accepted by everyone without dissension, what transpired during the tabulation of Region Four votes precipitated a dark blot in the history of Guyana.

The blatant fraud committed by Clairmont Mingo, the Returning Officer of Electoral District #4 in relation to the tabulation of the results of that District, acting in a conspiracy with others within and beyond GECOM, catalysed a series of incidents that clearly indicated an intention to declare the results of the elections in favour of the APNU+ AFC, when the SoPs revealed that the PPP/C had won the elections.

Exacerbating this contretemps was the refusal of the Coalition partners, as well as GECOM, to show their SoPs, even while making claims of electoral fraud, accusing GECOM polling clerks of erroneously tabulating votes by dead persons and people who had migrated. Investigations showed that these allegations were not based on facts, and the people named by the Coalition partners angrily refuted claims that they had died or migrated.
Acting beyond her remit, the GECOM Chair, as revealed in a news report published in the Chronicle newspaper of 23rd May 2020, had invited Joe Harmon of the APNU+AFC to submit evidence in support of multiple allegations that dead and migrated persons voted at the March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections.

This was a flagrant violation of the Constitution of Guyana, which dictates that the High Court should be the arbiter of such matters by way of an Election Petition.
The blatant fraud committed by Clairmont Mingo was further revealed in a Kaieteur News article entitled, “Recounted Grove, Providence boxes expose more of Mingo’s manipulation”, which included a table showing Mingo’s manipulation of Region Four figures.
Also, indications that plans were afoot to derail the elections were revealed by a Kaieteur News article dated 6th May, 2020, captioned, “Mingo had instructed POs to leave documents out of ballot boxes” for the PPP/C areas in the lower East Coast Demerara.

This referred to 41 ballot boxes without statutory documentation, with evidence also allegedly implicating his clerk.
The article states, in part, “The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) is in possession of the missing statutory documents from Region Four ballot boxes on the East Coast of Demerara, documents that were ‘missing’ because Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo had passed instructions that they be left out of the boxes since Elections night.”

Deputy Returning Officer (DRO) from Chateau Margot Primary, Paul Jaisingh, had made this claim in a letter to GECOM Chair, Justice Claudette Singh, in which he explained that the instructions came from Ms. Carlyn Duncan (Clerk to the Returning Officer Mr. Clairmont Mingo-District # 4).
PPP/C candidate, Mr Peter Ramsaroop, said in an Online interview, “…It’s the fact that they rigged the system when they found out that they are not going to win the elections. They went in the top floor in the Ashmin’s building and figured out how they were going to fake the numbers…  In total, APNU+AFC lost the elections by 25,000 votes, and there was no room for cheating, based on those numbers… Mr. Clairmont Mingo, making declarations from a spreadsheet and not from the SoPs. He (Mingo) then took the results presentation the said afternoon to the GECOM offices in Kingston… And again another parade of false declarations from SoPs. All the political parties there asked to examine the SoPs, so that we can see that you are presenting results from authentic SoPs, and that was refused.”

During the tabulation process, Mingo apparently faked illness, and this began a series of machinations by GECOM CEO Keith Lowenfield and other GECOM staffers, most caught on camera, in plain attempts to derail the elections.
Illegal signatures on Mingo’s false declarations by APNU Chairperson Volda Lawrence and member Carol Joseph further decelerated the process, and created great chaos.

The slew of arrests and consequential court appearances of those embroiled and implicated in electoral fraud charges keep increasing daily, but none has given as much satisfaction as the arrests of Mingo and Lowenfield, whose flawed and erroneous reports, subsequent to Mingo’s charade, further agonised the nation.

Among the multiplicity of frivolous and vexatious court cases, all at taxpayers’ expense, brought against GECOM in attempts to derail the elections was an appeal filed by A Partnership for National Unity +Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) Counting Agent, Misenga Jones to block the final elections declarations, whereby Justice Claudette Singh asked the Court to ensure that electoral fraud is not perpetuated in Guyana.
A statement by ANUG clarified the elections imbroglio, in part: “The election was conducted in a fair and orderly manner by the electorate. The count of ballots by the Presiding Officers at Places of Poll was done in the presence of GECOM officials, international and local observers, and representatives of the two large political parties, the APNU and the PPP.

Their Statements of Poll were distributed to the party representatives, and sent by GECOM to the Regional Officers for each region. In each region except Region 4, the Regional Officers assessed the SOPs and declared the results of the elections for their regions.
The result was that PPP enjoyed a lead of in excess of 50,000 votes before the SOPs for Region Four were assessed. APNU required 50,000 votes to win in Region Four in order to win the election. APNU has never won Region Four by such a large margin before.

The Regional Officer for Region 4 fraudulently assessed the SoPs and declared a win for APNU by over 60,000 votes. David Granger, Basil Williams, David Patterson, Kathy Hughes and most APNU officials dismissed PPP assertions of fraud, and claimed a victory on the count of the SoPs by Mingo. They began to celebrate their ‘victory’. Granger declared to his followers, “The APNU has won the election.”

Then litigation resulted in a recount of the ballots. In that recount, the nation learned that Mingo had lied; that Granger had lied; that Williams, Patterson, Hughes and the entire contingent of the APNU leadership had lied. On the count of the ballots, PPP leads the APNU by 15,000 votes.
In an unprecedented unity of purpose, all of Guyana, except APNU+AFC, the international community and CARICOM joined together in standing up for democracy throughout the process, and consequently democracy prevailed in the end.

However, as a priority, constitutional reform, with changing the configuration of GECOM an imperative, should be an engagement undertaken with alacrity, so that the Guyanese nation would never again be held to ransom, and made to endure such an agonising series of gimmickry to keep a despotic, dictatorial regime in power as transpired pre and post elections of March 2020.