EXACTLY two years ago an attempt was made to steal the democratic rights of the Guyanese people by the then APNU+AFC regime in collaboration with some rogue elements of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) secretariat. After voting peacefully at the March 2020 National and Regional Elections, the Guyanese people were eagerly awaiting the tabulation and announcement of the election results, only to find that the results were being flagrantly and shamelessly manipulated by the GECOM secretariat to fabricate an APNU+AFC “victory”.

Interestingly, the results of all the other regions were satisfactorily tabulated and announced by the GECOM secretariat, except when it came to Region Four, after it became apparent that the APNU+AFC Coalition was on the verge of losing the elections based on the Statements of Poll (SoPs) supplied to the political parties by the GECOM secretariat after the close of polls. The PPP/C was in the clear lead and the only way open to the Granger administration to perpetuate its life in power was to manipulate the votes in Region Four, the largest electoral district in terms of votes. Of interest to note was that the life of the then regime had already been prolonged by nearly 18 months after it was defeated in a no-confidence vote, but resorted to all manner of judicial gymnastics to stay on beyond its constitutional mandate.

And that was exactly what the APNU+AFC attempted to do with the collaboration of ‘rogue’ elements in the GECOM secretariat. Departing from the well-established practice of announcing results from the actual Statements of Poll, the secretariat in a strange turn of events began the announcement of results in Region Four from a “spreadsheet’ carefully and calculatedly fabricated to project a margin of ‘victory’ in Region Four, sufficiently large enough to ‘negate’ the electoral gains made by the PPP/C in the rest of the electoral districts.

Not only were the attempts to rig the results of the elections done in a clumsy manner, but it was done in full view of representatives of the political parties, overseas and local observers and members of the diplomatic community. Former Jamaica Prime Minister Bruce Golding, who headed the Organisation of American States (OAS) Observer Group, said that he “has never seen a more transparent effort to alter the results of an election.” According to Mr Golding, the recount process which was subsequently done through the intervention of CARICOM, showed glaring instances where the figures presented by the Returning Officer of Region Four had been clearly fiddled with.

“You know it takes an extraordinarily courageous mind to present fictitious numbers when such a sturdy paper trail exists,” he said in his report. By way of an example, he disclosed that for Ballot Box #4062, the Statement of Poll (SoP) had indicated 182 votes for the APNU+AFC and 43 votes for the PPP/C. The Returning Officer’s impugned spreadsheet reported those results as 292 for APNU+AFC and 33 votes for the PPP/C. However, when the box was recounted, the numbers in the Statement of Recount (SoR) were 182 for APNU+AFC and 43 for the PPP/C, the exact figures that appeared on the SoP!

These were not isolated cases, but formed a pattern of fictitious and bogus results in Region Four intended to falsely project an inflated number of votes for the APNU+AFC, large enough to overtake the PPP/C’s huge margin of votes in the other electoral districts. The electoral drama took several twists and turns as different results were announced by the then Chief Elections Officer, even after the recount was done and again showed a clear PPP victory.

All of that is now water under the bridge thanks to the intervention of the local and international observer groups; the diplomatic community; the judicial system; civil society groups; the private sector; the non-state media and the society as a whole. After a prolonged and painful period of counts and recounts, the PPP/C was declared winner and Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali was sworn in as the duly-elected President of Guyana.

Today, the country is enjoying the fresh air of democracy, although there is still need to strengthen our democratic institutions, in particular, the Guyana Elections Commission to deliver free, fair and credible elections. Some progress has been made in this regard with the removal of some “rogue” elements within the leadership of the GECOM secretariat. Steps are also being taken by the PPP/C administration to amend the electoral laws to impose greater penalties on those who may attempt to engage in electoral malpractices.