Rather than repeated monitoring and making reform recommendations that governments ignore, Nicholas Cheeseman and Brian Klaas (2018 – How to rig an Elections,Yale University Press) argued that an effective system of international monitoring requires three main interventions to improve the prospects for protecting elections.
In a nutshell, monitors need to: (1) keep up with the technological times and deploy biometric technology, computer logs and storage, and expertise to give an indication of whether there is a hidden digital pattern of electoral manipulation, (2) devise and implement a common set of standards and give joint statements to send a clear message to the ruling parties, and (3) ensure that weaknesses they identify in the system are rectified or refuse to monitor elections where this is not done.
Election rigging is an illegitimate and undemocratic means of tilting the playing field clearly in favour of one party or candidate at the expense of others, and six categories of such manipulations are usually used by ‘counterfeit democrats/autocrats’: (1) gerrymandering, where the size of boundaries are arranged to give advantage to one party;
(2) vote buying: the direct purchase of votes by cash or gifts; (3) repression, which takes various forms such as preventing candidates from campaigning, denying them media access, intimidating supporters of other parties to prevent them going to the polls; (4) digitally hacking to change the narrative of the debate, spread fake news or simply invent the results; (5) stuffing the ballot boxes by adding false votes, facilitating multiple voting, etc., and (6) duping the international community into legitimizing poor-quality polls (Ibid).
In relation to the 2025 elections, the current PPP autocratic regime has already violated all the above except for the stuffing ballot boxes and duping the international community, largely because these can only be done or come into play during and after voting has taken place. Importantly, Cheeseman and Klass noted that the strategies ‘have one thing in common, they can only work if the electoral commission is involved’ and after all the international recommendations, the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) remains firmly in the hands of the PPP!
As a matter of fact, the PPP regime has not fulfilled the important reforms the international community and Caricom recount group have recommended and the opposition has been demanding in relation to the elections register, reorganisation of GECOM, the introduction of biometrics, etc. Last week, I noted that at the recent 2025 United Nations Human Rights Council Working Group Universal Periodic Review of the political situation in Guyana.
The Carter Centre again urged the political leaders to commit to a constitutional reform process that is inclusive and transparent and among other things, repeated the call made in its report on Guyana’s 2020 elections for constitutional reform as an urgent priority and for key reforms to be completed ‘well before the next general election’, stating, among other things, that the structure of GECOM replicated political divisions and inhibited the effective and transparent administration of elections.
It is against the above backdrop that a few weeks ago, before the regime called the 2025 elections for September 1st, I welcomed the partnership between the United Kingdom (UK) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) that is intended to ‘contribute to efforts that support Guyana’s electoral processes in line with international best practices for the 2025 elections.’
I then also viewed the hurriedly called elections as an attempt to short-circuit this intervention and concluded last week’s column by reminding the regional and international stakeholders who were at the forefront of the ‘struggle for democracy’ in 2020 that if ,as the regime hopes, we proceed to elections without serious reforms, an autocratic outcome is inevitable(VV: 08/06/2025 & KN: 11/06/2025).
However, last Monday, the leader of the opposition, Mr. Aubrey Norton and a team met with officials of the reputable Sweden-based Institute of Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), which I surmise is here to implement the British/UNDP project. According to its blurb, the vision and mission of IDEA is very much in keeping with the position taken by this column over the years but that is anathema to the current regime.
It is committed to the creation of a world ‘in which everyone lives in inclusive and resilient democracies’ and considers democracy essential for promoting and guaranteeing human rights, and believes that participation in political life, including government, is part of human rights, proclaimed and guaranteed by international treaties and declarations.
In Guyana, if the rule of law, access to justice, accountable and transparent institutions, responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making in line with ‘leave no one behind’ and fundamental freedoms exist, they are all under severe stress.
The day after meeting with IDEA, Mr. Norton and some executives of the PNC met with the ambassadors of the ABC countries and their counterparts of the European Commission, but very ominously, according to a Kaieteur News report, ‘It is not clear what the diplomats and the PNCR executives discussed.’ (KN:11/06/2025). What we do know is that stemming from an invitation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Carter Centre and the European Union are prepared to again monitor elections in Guyana.
According to reports, the Carter Centre plans to deploy a small team of international experts to begin observing the pre-election period for the general and regional elections. The Centre, of all organisations, must know that unless some radical reforms or consensual adjustments take place, they are about to be involved in an electoral process that is so flawed that it can only be democratically acceptable if the opposition wins! This may also explain why it plans to deploy a short-term team to observe the ‘polling, counting, and tabulation processes’ sometime in the coming weeks (SN: 10/06/2025).
Rather than reforming, the PPP has used its recent time in government to so corrupt the electoral system that on the face of it one would expect the international observers to follow the advice of Cheeseman and Klass and refuse to become involved. However, the interlocutors may have concluded that it is possible to find sufficient consensual outcomes even at this late stage.
Secondly, the electoral experience of our belligerent next-door neighbour suggests that even in the face of daunting odds, it is possible to put up a political struggle that defeats the incumbent, regardless of what outcomes it proclaims, and the presence of international monitors can help to support and later legitimise the opposition position.
Thirdly and generally, non-engagement strategies might not be sensible in a context where the 2025 V-democracy reported that the proportion of the world’s population living in a liberal democracy is the lowest it has been in 50 years – less than 12% – while 72% of the global population or 5.8 billion people now live under autocratic rule. Electoral democracies, of which Guyana is a backsliding member, account for only about 17% of the world’s population.
The above suggests that it is time for those who wish to live in a free, inclusive, equitable and prosperous Guyana to coalesce to politically confront the existing dictatorial PPP regime. In this context, the Alliance for Change (AFC) would be a valued partner, and it is good that as purported democrats, the party appears to have accepted Mr. Aubrey Norton, the democratically elected candidate of by far the largest possible coalition member, as the coalition presidential candidate (SN: 14/06/2025).
One must hope that a similar adherence to established moral political principles and realism govern the remainder of the coalition discourse. Equability must be in play, but ministers are merely advisors to the president who can dismiss them at will. In Guyana’s constitutional context, all the AFC requires is the political will and sufficient parliamentary seats to walk away from a PNC-led coalition government that has become overbearingly autocratic/dictatorial or otherwise unacceptable
