There is general suspicion that APNU+AFC have hijacked GECOM for a PNC-style rigging of elections that Guyana unfortunately suffered from for decades between 1968 and 1992. While it is customary for the PNC leadership and their sycophants to deny any rigging in that period, the vast majority of Guyanese know of, or experienced directly, election rigging by the PNC. It is documented locally and internationally, and many well-known PNC officials admit to this in private. The blatant rigging in that period forced an international intervention headed by former American President Jimmy Carter, which led to the restoration of democracy in 1992.
The Leader of the Opposition argued last week that the Guyanese people have valid reasons to believe that the 2020 elections are being positioned to follow the illegitimacy of elections in 1968, 1973, 1980 and 1985, and the Referendum of 1978. The President’s arbitrary imposition of a GECOM Chair is only one of the reasons why people believe that the intentions of this Government is to rig the 2020 elections.
Electoral-rigging suspicion is heightened by the behaviour of the GECOM Chair and the three APNU+AFC commissioners. Take the example of the UN’s involvement in supporting free and fair elections in Guyana. The UN was solicited by GECOM in February this year to provide support to build and strengthen IT capacity and other related functions for the upcoming local government elections, and for the 2020 general elections. The UN has provided critical and invaluable support for free and fair elections in Guyana since 1992. The UN responded immediately, declaring its willingness to continue its support for free and fair elections and the sustainability of democracy in Guyana. The UN sent a team in May to determine gaps and ways that it could provide support. The Attorney General posed proudly with the team in May, and bragged that this was evidence APNU+AFC is committed to free and fair elections.
The problem is that since then, GECOM’s Chairman, handpicked by the President in violation of constitutional provisions and in breach of the consultative process in place since 1992, has stalled the initiative. In June, he spoke publicly about the importance of the support that the UN is proposing, assuring the public that the support would include an IT specialist who would help develop the software that, among other things, would facilitate tabulation process, biometric verification at the polling stations, verification of electoral lists, and general security at polling stations. Since that June declaration by the Chairman of GECOM, he has gone quiet, and is quietly and effectively sabotaging the UN’s promise of assistance.
The mission had a pre-arranged meeting with GECOM for August 7, to discuss the gaps they identified and the ways they proposed to assist GECOM. The UN team was responding to the terms of reference that were agreed to. The Chairman, without any credible explanation, simply informed GECOM commissioners — that same morning, during a statutory meeting — that the discussion with the UN, scheduled for that same afternoon, was cancelled by the Chairman. In the best tradition of an authoritarian leader, he told them he had information that necessitated the cancelling. One member, Robeson Benn, was forced to publicly address the matter in a letter to the media on August 10. It is now past a month and the Chairman has gone totally silent. The LGE is less than two months away, and the sought-after help from the UN is being sabotaged by the Chairman himself. Why?
In the meanwhile, local government elections are to be conducted on November 12. The Minister of Communities, Ronald Bulkan, has arbitrarily, without following the law, changed certain demarcations of NDCs, and even incorporated Amerindian villages in some of the NDCs. He is effectively gerrymandering, which is another of the rigging instruments. Space does not permit a detailed discussion of gerrymandering introduced in these elections, but one example is APNU/AFC’s clandestine changing of two Amerindian Village Councils, Annai and Aranaputa, into NDCs without consulting the toshaos or residents.
We must not forget the clandestine operations at the Ministry of Citizenship: there is no explanation for the issuing of thousands of new adult birth certificates; there is no explanation for what happened to the many thousands of Haitians, Cubans, and people from other countries who entered Guyana and never left; there is a frightening suspicion that these persons will show up on the voters list, and that padded voters’ list will become a feature of the elections, just as it did pre-1992. Something really rotten is smelling at GECOM.
