IT was on March 4 of elections 2020 that the real rigging began. On Tuesday, March 3, Guyanese suspected that something was not right, but actual evidence of rigging had not unfolded as yet.

Journalist Leonard Gildarie and I at the time were hosting a radio programme on the elections and we had Captain Jerry Gouveia as our guest.

It was Gouveia’s words that sounded the alarm. He told us on Tuesday, March 3, the day after voting that the counting had stopped for Region Four and he didn’t understand why. He left the show saying that he was going to see the US Ambassador to monitor the situation.

The stoppage of the counting the day after people voted was indeed worrying, but returning officer (RO) for Region Four, Clairmont Mingo had offered a valid explanation for halting the tabulation on the night of Tuesday, March 3.

When someone announced he/she cannot work because of illness, it is basic human decency to show understanding. Mingo publicly stated that he was tired and would resume the next morning of Wednesday, March 4. But it was the next day Guyana showed signs of returning to the days when the country had no free general elections.

Let’s go inside that fateful day of March 4, 2020. In the morning, Mingo complained of illness and was ambulanced to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation. Anil Nandlall addressing the media announced that in the absence of the RO, his deputy is empowered by law to perform the tabulation duties. On Wednesday, March 4, the rigging of the election was underway.

Here is what happened during the so-called illness of Mingo. Instead of the deputy RO continuing the tabulation, a clerk was instructed to resume the tabulation which took the form of the use of an unknown spread-sheet system instead of the statements of poll.

Opposition politicians were livid because what was being announced on the spreadsheets differed significantly from the statements of poll. On Wednesday, March 4, the conspiracy to interfere with the general and regional elections of 2020 was underway.

This conspiracy lasted from March 4 to the end of July 2020.
For a vivid account of how a country endured five months of election-rigging, please see the large book, “Democracy Prevails: The Chronicle of the Guyana 2020 elections.” The footnoting of this book is awesome. Of course, there is the report of the Commission of Enquiry into the elections which was made public in April last year.

These two publications contain material that should be internalised by any Guyanese, no matter what the level of your educational attainment is. I am not going to dwell on the five months of drama in the rigging of the 2020 poll. I have written an enormous amount on that since the machinations unfolded, but to use this particular column to examine what some parts of Guyana has become using the 2020 election fiasco as context.

Five days before we reached March 2, 2024, the anniversary of the election (which was February 26), the High Court dismissed yet another court case in which the anti-oil lobby had sought to weaken Exxon’s presence in Guyana. The February 26 decision marks about eight court cases against the oil industry by a group of wealthy people that they had lost, out of about 15 that have been filed in the court.

As you read about these attempts by this wealthy anti-oil lobby, you are forced to ask where these people were when Guyana as a country was facing total collapse on this day, March 4, 2020. I did some calculations to show you the anti-government venom of these people.

In the presence of journalist Leonard Gildarie, a friend of ours told us that a prominent lawyer charged him one million dollars to file an injunction against a company. The anti-oil lobby has about 15 cases in the court in which high-priced lawyers are involved.

Let us say each court case cost the plaintiffs a total of $6 million from the High Court right through to the final stage at the Caribbean Court of Justice, a total of $90 million. Even if you reduce that figure by $20 million that is still an enormous amount of money to spend on legal fees.

Surely, if the standard price for an injunction is a million, imagine what those court cases are costing the anti-oil lobby, because all of the lost decisions are being appealed. Isn’t this fake patriotism in that these rich folks never filed a writ in court to stop the rigging on this day four years ago, but they tell us that they want to save Guyana from the fossil fuel. I hope they save their souls from being fossilised.