…at the votes
To the surprise of many, we crossed the latest hurdle in this long and winding road called “Elections 2020” – to get the final numbers in the recount. After the bluster of the “Sanctimonious Gangster” the day before about “numerous reports of irregularities” – followed by an even more hysterical Press Release by APNU/AFC about “electoral fraud affecting 84,000 votes” – the elections rigging crew clearly expected that they’d stave off the numerical proof of their rejection by the majority of the populace.
While the Sanctimonious One kept up his studied pose and didn’t actually wave a stick, the PR from his party didn’t leave anything to the imagination. “GECOM is put on notice that it cannot use illegal and fraudulent votes to produce a valid and acceptable result. Fraud cannot produce credibility.” Imagine the man whose mantra for five years has been “I will obey the Constitution” approving this crude threat to an organisation he has insisted is “autonomous”!!
But to its credit, the Commission’s Chair went ahead and had the Secretariat complete the “long recount”, which will certainly put Guyana once again in the Guinness Book of Records. The first was when we had the Jonestown largest mass suicide in the world back in 1978. Both thanks to the PNC, thank you!! And there were the numbers that everyone was waiting for: APNU/AFC 217,920, PPP/C 233,336!! The PPP had won!
This winning margin of 15,416 votes by the PPP, of course, was what they’d always insisted was secured based on their SoPs and those in the possession of the other small parties. The PNC also had these same SoPs – since they were all generated from the same source – but chose to inflict all this damage on the Guyanese psyche over the last three months.
The smaller parties – almost all formed just before these elections – didn’t fare too well but the three of them that had decided on forming a “joiner of lists” did managed to scrape up a single seat – ANUG 2313; LJP 2657 and TNM 244. CG of Robert Badal managed a (comparatively) decent 1953 but will be left out of Parliament. However, while these newbies didn’t do as well as their founders must’ve hoped, they did manage to throw up some new faces on the scene who played a big role in performatively destroying one of the PNC’s biggest weapons.
This was their hope to make the elections into a racial battle – even though with Guyana’s present demographics, each of the two big guns had to get substantial crossover votes to go over 50%.
With the PPP’s 33 seats forming a majority (no half men needed!) in the National Assembly, the Joiner party can still play a mediating role.
…at what’s ahead
The PPP leadership didn’t waste any time to literally hit the ground running after the final numbers were coming out. Both President-elect Irfaan Ali, Prime Minister-elect Mark Phillips and Party General Secretary Bharrat Jagdeo showed up at the ACCC. After thanking all the Guyanese who stuck to their tasks – GECOM, the political parties, the counting crew; the guardians of the ballots, the media, etc…they all went on message.
To wit, they recognise the challenges posed to good governance by both the electoral system and political system and vowed to address both. They, of course, couldn’t have failed to witness the divisions in our society the PNC desperately tried to deepen and widen, and spoke out forcefully about their commitment to deal with those divisions. Thankfully they didn’t insult the collective wisdom of Guyanese to promise panaceas – like “executive shared governance” one reporter doggedly pushed.
They maturely promised to look at all models before involving the Guyanese people to eventually decide.
This is what democracy’s all about!!
