DEMOCRACY was rescued after five months of varied attempts by the APNU+AFC to hijack the March 2, 2020, elections. Democracy was threatened. Now it is in safe hands of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic!

Three years ago today, the world watched as Guyanese voted under the control of the PNC-led coalition and queried whether the ruling party would accept defeat were it to lose the election.

The PNC rigged every election from 1964 onwards, and the sole referendum (1978) in independent Guyana till 1992 to remain in office.

As it were, as Guyanese and the world feared, the then PNC-led coalition government attempted to influence the results of the March 2, 2020 election. It was all caught on camera, but the PNC was not embarrassed.

The party was not embarrassed by earlier electoral riggings. But one expected that party’s political culture and its lack of respect for democracy would have changed some 28 years later (from 1992 when it was forced out of office by threats from the Carter Centre-led team of international observers) in March 2020, when democratic elections were being accepted globally.

After the 23-year experience with democratic practices (October 1992 to May 2015) in Guyana, one would have thought that the PNC would have embraced democratic concepts like respecting the outcome of a parliamentary no-confidence vote and democratically held free and fair elections. Everyone had hoped for a turning of the page of the PNC of the past. It was not to be.

On December 21, 2018, the PNC led coalition lost a no-confidence motion that it urged the then PPP/C opposition “to bring it on if they have 33 votes.”

Some 33 members of parliament (32 from the opposition and one person from the ruling coalition) did vote to bring down the government.

The coalition announced to the world that it had accepted defeat and that it would follow the Constitution that mandated elections within 90 days.

Weeks later, the coalition backtracked, challenging the no-confidence vote. There was one delaying tactic after another resulting in judicial intervention.

The country’s apex court, the Caribbean Court of Justice, ruled that the government had fallen and urged it to follow the Constitution and call an election. An election was not scheduled until March 2020, some 15 months after the defeat in the no-confidence motion. Voters were displeased with the various attempts to delay the holding of an election.

It took days to officially finalise the vote count when unofficial results were in the hands of every party and observer, as well as the media and GECOM.

The coalition claimed victory but could not provide legitimate numbers from statements of polls to back the claim. Spokespersons for the administration began refusing to accept the outcome, which was a victory for the PPP/C.

All international and domestic observers as well as several parties that contested the elections stated that it was free and fair. They also stated that the outcome, as reflected in the publicly displayed statements of poll, were an accurate reflection of the vote. The PNC refused to accept defeat.

The numbers showed the coalition trailing after the SOPs of nine of 10 regions were certified. The SOPs of Region Four, a PNC stronghold, was last to be certified. The Returning Officer for Region Four mysteriously became ill and had to be taken to the hospital. There was a black out and bomb threat.

The vote count on SOPs for Region Four were magically changed. There were other attempted skullduggery including a failed attempt to change numbers on the computer that was used to officially store and tally the overall count.

All of this was being done under public glare – presence of witnesses and cameras. Observers were there as were diplomats of the ABCE countries. Former Jamaican Prime Minister, Bruce Golding who led a team of OAS observers described the attempted fraud “as the most transparent attempt he had ever seen to rig an election.”

CARICOM intervened! An agreement was brokered to have a CARICOM-led audit (recount) of the ballots of all 10 regions. After agreeing to the recount, the coalition went to court to block it. The appeal court said the recount did not violate the Constitution.

Guardians of Democracy as watchmen to protect the ballot boxes, various people who fought against the attempted fraud, significant role of observer missions, and others who worked behind the scenes, and the US State Department intervened to save democracy.

The recount of ballots as reflected on new recount statements of poll (RSOPs) were almost the same as those on the original SOPS, recertifying a PPP/C victory. Several attempts were made by the then CEO of GECOM to prevent the declaration of the numbers from the RSOPs. The coalition again tried to block the declaration of the winner by going to court. The Appeal Court ruled against it.

The US State department issued a warning statement urging the coalition to accept the recount. Eventually, the CEO did the right thing, declaring that the PPP/C won the elections and 33 seats; 31 seats went to the coalition and one seat to the joiner list of three parties. Dr. Irfaan Ali, the PPP Presidential nominee, was sworn in as President on August 2, 2020, five months after the election.

Democracy was rescued after a long-fought battle of five months to certify the outcome that was preceded by 12 months of struggle to force the coalition to honour long held democratic conventions to hold an election after a defeat in a no-confidence motion. Since August 2020, democracy has flourished and is being further consolidated with the passage of new laws in Guyana.