After the elections

Now that at long last the Presidential candidate of the PPP, Irfaan Ali, has been sworn in for his second term as the President of Guyana, maybe we can offer a short retrospective and prospective look at its attendant circumstances. The elections campaign started out with six parties; PPP, PNC/APNU, AFC, three-month-old WIN, and two splinter groups from the PNC – Amanza Walton-Desir’s FGM and Simona Broomes’ ALP. From the 14 July Nomination Day, the outcome was presaged by the numbers of followers who showed up and which were maintained until Sep 1, Elections Day; PPP, followed by WIN, PNC/APNU, FGM, AFC, and ALP.
The results, compiled by GECOM from SoPs that were posted on its website, accessible to the world, showed that the PPP had increased its number of seats from 33 to 36 while WIN incredibly compiled 16 seats – primarily drawn from the PNC’s bases since they were reduced from 32 seats to 12. The AFC disappeared as FGM acquired 1 seat through pipping it, based on the “greatest remainder” – commonly dubbed “left over” – principle. Disappointingly, the PNC and WIN challenged the results with the former being successful in demanding a recount in District 4, Sub-District 4 and District 5. The latter demanded recounts in all of Reg Four, and Reg Eight but was denied since their filing was defective.
Evidently, all parties wanted a recount of Reg Four’s Sub-District 4 (East Coast Demerara) because of the PPP winning Reg Four for the first time in history and Sub-District 4 has been the core of PNC’s support during that time. From GECOM’s declaration, 182,209 persons voted in the entire Region with PPP securing 87,536 votes, followed by APNU with 46,956; WIN with 41,607; FGM 2431; AFC 1765 and ALP 497. In the 2020 General Elections, the PPP had won 80,920 votes and APNU/AFC coalition 116,941 out of a total of 203,742 votes cast then. Due to its campaign strategy of overly courting votes from the PNC’s traditional constituency, the PPP increased their share by 6616 votes and WIN snagging its amazing 41,607 votes primarily from the PNC.
While one may sympathise with PNC’s leader Aubrey Norton’s humiliation at such a resounding trouncing, it is difficult to understand his motive for demanding a recount since it was impossible for GECOM’s electoral mechanism of checks and cross-checks to permit the gap between his party’s votes and those of the other parties. His claim that the PPP had allowed finagling of the votes meant they did so to benefit WIN and not themselves. Notwithstanding, the recount left the original count practically unchanged, with the PPP actually picking up an additional handful.
GECOM’s CEO, however, was unable to officially inform the Commission of the amended results because the three Opposition-appointed Commissioners absented themselves from the scheduled 11pm Friday night meeting. Complying with the law, they met last night at eleven with the requisite four Commissioners – the Chair being considered as one – and declared Ali elected President. Unlike in 1997 when the PNC of Desmond Hoyte obtained an Order Nisi to prevent Janet Jagan from being sworn in as President, such a move was later barred by the Courts. Norton’s only recourse is to proceed with an elections petition.
What is of importance at this juncture is for the choice of the people to select the PPP to appoint the President and his Executive in our Parliamentary Democracy must be complied with. In that framework, Azruddin Mohamed, as leader of WIN, should become the Leader of the Opposition (LOO) that will include the PNC. Calls for Aubrey Norton to resign as leader of the PNC/APNU have already been made and it is hoped good sense will prevail and he will do so after he engages in the process of selecting the 12 MPs to represent APNU in Parliament. There have been doubts expressed on the new LOO performing his official role because of his OFAC sanction, but the US Ambassador has indicated her Government will “work around” that status.
This newspaper offers its congratulations to President Ali.