Dear Editor,
The necessary and timely reminder is that we Guyanese must ‘never forget our struggles to preserve democracy.’
It is a little over three years now, and the memory is quite fresh. However, in the future, this reminder must be invoked, as distant generations must be apprised of what took place in the aftermath of the March 2020 Guyana Elections.
So, I am with President Ali as he conjured up the struggles to have the electorate’s voice heard and respected after the said March 2, 2020 unfolding, when A Partnership For National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) sought to steal legitimate elections victory from the now ruling People’s Progressive Party/Civic incumbent. What a five-month episode that was!
Editor, it will remain vivid in my mind, and I guess in the minds of those who witnessed it. Initially, things went quite well pre-voting and actual voting, and even the initial stages of the counting were in order. However, ‘all hell broke loose’ when the Region Four tally was being compiled. That started the unfolding of what was described as “attempts by the then APNU+AFC Administration to rip the democratic fabric of the nation”, with “delay tactics” which were openly criticised by a wide section of society…(as President Irfaan Ali has put it).
And what a society that was! That observing society included independent and international elites such as former British High Commissioner to Guyana, Greg Quinn; former Ambassador of the European Union Delegation to Guyana, Fernando Ponz-Canto; US Ambassador to Guyana, Sarah-Ann Lynch, and former Canadian High Commissioner to Guyana, Lilian Chatterjee.
Added to this, there were the Members of the Caricom Election Observation Mission, the Organization of American States (OAS), the Commonwealth, the Carter Center, and the European Union, as well as ambassadors accredited to Caricom residents in Guyana and other members of the diplomatic community in Guyana.
This alone should have negated any untoward happenings, yet Guyana was thrown, by the APNU/AFC, into unprecedented waters in a most barefaced manner.
I remember the optimism expressed by the Chief of Mission, Ms Cynthia Combie Martyr, who boasted that “… the people of Guyana should be proud of themselves,” even as the Mission salutes the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) and the citizens of the country “for the peaceful conduct of the Poll.” Alas! Alas! Alas!
Optimism vanished, and instead of a seamless declaration of results and the swearing-in of the new President, “Guyanese, after casting their votes, had to endure a five-month wait for the results of the General and Regional Elections, as they witnessed alleged unlawful acts and a slew of legal challenges.” All of this was engineered by APNU/AFC, with their chief stars in former Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield and former District Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo.
I mean, their dalliance back then was nothing but brazen illegality, and “It was only after the legal challenges and international intervention that a national recount of all votes cast was convened, and the figures, as expected, and in corroboration with all the statements of poll, showed that the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) received 233,336 votes, while the APNU+AFC Coalition got 217,920 votes.”
In the end, the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) sealed the issue, and the PPP/C are in the rightful seat of governance (still to the denial and disgust of APNU/AFC). So, as clearly iterated by the President, “We must never forget the struggles we went through to preserve our democracy.”
Let me close by invoking what Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister Anil Nandlall, SC, intoned, which lends support to President Ali’s statement. According to the Legal Head, “…the people of Guyana must pledge to do everything in their power to ensure that those events never happen again here -something which he assured the current People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government was committed to.”
He detailed the determination to preserve democracy by assuring all that “…your Government is very much alive to those realities that we experienced, and we will work to ensure that the democratic credentials of this country are maintained and that we continue to work to deliver a better tomorrow for every single Guyanese”.
So far so good. We have Regional and General Elections in another two years, and very soon there will be Local Government Elections. I doubt APNU/AFC will try anything like what they attempted between March and August 2020.
Yours truly,
H Singh
