THIS article was actually written on October 5, a day that stands as a landmark in the political and electoral history of Guyana. Of course, elections which were due in 1990 were postponed by two years to accommodate certain Carter Center-brokered reforms that brought about free and fair elections. To appreciate the significance of October 5, it is important to understand what was happening in our politics and electoral landscape prior to October 5, 1992.

Visualise a system where every GECOM chairman is unilaterally appointed by the President and the President chose one of his loyalists. GECOM commissioners are appointed for three months before and three months after the elections and then dissolved. Imagine that management of elections was an actual ministerial portfolio. Picture a situation where most of the permanent and elections day staff of GECOM were either hired at Office of the President and sent to GECOM or personal aides of ministers and other high government officials were part of GECOM elections day staff. Consider an elections without observers of any stripe or size, except for government owned and appointed media houses.

Imagine that a day or two before elections you made sure to check that your name was on the official voters’ list, but when you turned up to your designated place of poll, which was heavily guarded by gun-slinging GDF officers, you were told you cannot vote because your name is not on the list. Or, picture that your name was indeed on the list, you joined the long line to cast your ballot, but when you reached the front, and attempted to access the voting area, you found your name crossed out because you had already voted. While you were being turned away from voting, you saw a young, healthy person, next up to vote, loudly remonstrating because she was being told that there is a signed proxy form in her name and someone had already voted for her. Further, imagine you were assigned to work as a party agent at a particular polling place, and prior to the opening of poll, you witnessed the arrival of the ballot box, transported by a GDF truck, already containing dozens of ballots, but you were not allowed to verify the contents of the box before polling starts. Further, imagine that at some polling stations after marking your ballot for the party of your choice, you were required to hand it to the polling clerk to be placed in the ballot box on your behalf and you left the polling place not knowing for sure if that ballot paper made it into the box.

Try to picture that you see dozens of people casting their ballots, the elections officers refusing to put ink on their fingers and after casting your own ballot, you see those same persons in the line to vote again. Or visualise that, while in the line to vote, a bus load of persons who are complete strangers to your small, close-knitted community, arrive and were given priority to vote. After casting their ballots, they exited the polling station with all fingers uninked, rejoined the bus as a brigade and left. Imagine your entire family who were registered to, and has always voted at the primary school across the road, were told that they were listed to vote at another unfamiliar place 50 miles away. Further, just imagine that after the close of poll a GDF truck arrived with gun-toting soldiers, heisted the ballot box and disappeared into the night.

Consider that at the place where you voted a few brave souls mounted a small protest to demand that their votes be counted at the polling place, and that military officers should not just take away the ballots to an unknown destination. And in response, GDF officers simply open fire, killed protestors and kept going with the ballot box.

Stretch your mind a bit more and envision that, by law, Guyanese who moved or were born to Guyanese parents overseas and located in the Commonwealth were allowed to vote. An overseas voters list is generated and almost 90 per cent of overseas ballots were casted. Then party agents, private investigators and news agencies made checks to verify the existence of the voters and found open playfields, uninhabited buildings, or family homes whose generational occupants have never heard of any of the dozens of persons listed at that singular address.

Imagine your party agents were only able to witness the counting of 10 per cent of the ballot boxes. For the remaining boxes, party agents were given a time and place for counting the ballots and upon arrival they were issued with a results sheet and told that they arrived late, and the ballots were already counted. What about if you saw ballot boxes that were removed, by the GDF, from polling stations in your district still loaded in parked trucks in the compound of a government building or the election agency, yet you hear results announced purporting to come from those untouched boxes.

Anyone born after 1975 would not have been eligible to vote till sometime after 1992. Therefore, if you were born in the late 70s and beyond, all that I related above will sound like make believe emanating from wild imagination. It may even feel as though you are immersed in a land of fantasy. This group accounts for more than 75 per cent of our population. For the other 25 per cent and hundreds of thousands of other deceased Guyanese, the descriptions above were actual, lived experiences for elections between 1968 and 1985 (1968, 1973, 1980, 1985).

Many of our countrymen and women died never having the experience of free and fair elections in Guyana. That sacred right of having their votes counted was violently wrestled from them. Many have fought and struggled against the suppression and outright stealing of their free democratic will, but did not live long enough to witness or experience a free and fair electoral process.

October 5, 1992 marked the end of an era where someone sat in their bed chamber and decided what the results would be, and simply ordered elections officials to announce it, and in the process ignored the actual votes casted by hundreds of thousands of Guyanese.

The sacrifices of Dr Cheddi Jagan, though almost undone in 2020, along with a consortium of other Guyanese and international actors, should not be taken for granted.

This day must be commemorated in perpetuity as a memorial and a reminder of the consequences of electoral backsliding. Since 1992, several legal reforms have tightened the system in ways that enhanced transparency to the point where the just concluded 2025 General and Regional Elections were said to be the most transparent in our history. There are a few more reforms that are still possible. As a nation, we must diligently pursue every avenue for refinement of our electoral system and secure democracy for future generations.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.