A THREE-member team from the Carter Center is in Guyana on the invitation of the Government of Guyana.
The team is here to have a pre-election assessment of the situation in the country. Founder of the Centre former President Jimmy Carter first visited the country in 1990, and the Center has since fielded observers in almost all of the country’s general and regional elections.

This is indeed a welcome development. The Center played a key role in the restoration of democratic rule on October 5, 1992, after twenty-eight years of PNC dictatorial rule. This came about after President Carter successfully managed to get the then-President Desmond Hoyte to agree on several electoral reforms, the most significant of which was the counting of votes at the place of poll. Hoyte had earlier dismissed that Opposition demand on the grounds of its being ‘a logistical nightmare’.

It is important to note that as recent as March 20, 2020, fresh attempts were made by the then APNU+AFC ruling coalition to rig the national and regional elections. That, however, was thwarted, thanks in large measure to the presence of local and foreign observers.
Regarding the March 5, 2020 elections, Elections Day, it will be recalled, went smoothly, and the Center’s observers sent back mostly positive results from all of the ten administrative regions. However, the counting process became derailed during the tallying of votes for Region Four, the largest region in terms of population. After only half the results for the region were tabulated in the presence of observers, the returning officer abruptly announced the rest of the results, which indicated a ‘victory’ for the then-ruling APNU+AFC, which was trailing behind. And all of that in the full presence of observers and representatives of the diplomatic community.

As to be expected, the Carter Center and other international observers denounced the declaration of unverified results which were lacking in transparency and credibility. The opposition parties, led by the then Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo, successfully filed a lawsuit which saw a return to the previous tallying process. But the restarted process again failed to meet the required standards.

In the end, after much drama and intrigue on the part of the APNU+AFC and ‘rogue’ elements from GECOM, democracy prevailed, and Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali was sworn in as the duly elected Executive President of Guyana.

Interestingly, the Carter Center is in the country at a time when the PNC, the major partner in the APNU, is holding its Party Congress. Will the new leadership of the party, headed by its leader, Aubrey Norton, commit to a process of democratic elections, given his party’s history of electoral fraud? So far, its commitment to democracy within its internal party elections is, at best, questionable, given the allegations of fraudulent practices by senior party executives.

President Ali, for his part, has recommitted to the democratic process, the Rule of Law and respect for the will of the Guyanese people. During his engagement with the Center, he underscored the importance of transparency, accountability and democratic governance, which have always been the hallmarks of the PPP and the PPP/C administration.