Guyanese must demand that election results accurately reflect their wishes
Dear Editor,
Recently, while conducting a study on why elections fail, I obtained advance warning that an attempt was being planned to perpetrate electoral fraud in Guyana in its March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections. Correspondence with both the Carter Center and the EU observer mission setting out the measures necessary to mitigate against the fraud went unheeded.
Now, six weeks after the election, with GECOM having decided to recount the ballots, Guyana is at risk of extending the delay through failure to adopt systems and procedures that will address the problems that will arise when the steps set out in the Representation of People Act are followed.
Copies of the Statements of Poll (SoPs) and tabulation of the results from the SoPs are in the public domain. What will happen when the public discover differences between those results and the results of the recount, particularly if it changes the result of the election? There will be a public outcry that has the potential to destabilise Guyana more than it already is.
It is the Guyanese people’s right to demand that steps are taken to ensure that the results accurately reflect their wishes.
The recount procedures set out in the Representation of People Act do not address the steps that must be taken when irregularities are uncovered. That is a recipe for disaster.
What is missing are the audit controls that must be adopted in the event of irregularities:
• What happens when the tamper evidence controls on the ballot boxes are missing or damaged?
• What happens when the recount figures differ from the original SoPs?
In both cases, an independent audit must investigate whether there is evidence of ballot stuffing, and that the ballots in the ballot boxes are those that were handed to voters at the Polling Station.
The audit should take place as the recount uncovers the discrepancies, not later. This prevents further delay in the announcement of the result and will mitigate against the potential that evidence is compromised.
These steps will greatly enhance the credibility of the results when they are eventually announced.
Guyana is not the exception in having failed to address the steps that must happen when exceptions arise. But, it now has the opportunity to lead, setting up measures that will make Guyana’s voters secure in the belief that the result is credible, and give the international community the confidence that the Government has been deservedly elected.
That will put Guyana back on track towards the economic growth it deserves, rather than the path of failed states that is common to countries where electoral fraud is the norm.
