No one is asking for systems to be put in place to rig elections. What is being demanded are systems that ensure free, fair, and credible elections. Yet, when citizens make this call to protect the integrity of the vote, the leadership of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), along with some of its supporters and letter writers, become annoyed.
It was the trade union movement that initiated and led the fight for one-man-one- vote and internal self-government. As a trade unionist and citizen, I have a deep, abiding interest in protecting these hard-won rights, fought for by and on behalf of the working people of Guyana: past present, and future.
What is becoming increasingly clear to this nation is the hypocrisy of Bharrat Jagdeo. While he shouts that others want to rig the elections, he, as leader of the PPP, along with PPP-nominated GECOM Commissioners and GECOM Chairperson, retired Justice Claudette Singh, are doing absolutely nothing to produce a clean voters list. Nor have they acted to implement biometric voter verification, a basic measure to reduce voter fraud.
The PPP regime and GECOM have had five years to make the necessary constitutional and legislative adjustments to facilitate the creation of a clean voters list. Guyana can more than afford the estimated US$20 million needed to implement a biometric system. It is not too late to enact electoral reform. President Desmond Hoyte and Opposition Leader Dr. Cheddi Jagan did so in their time. But the Irfaan Ali/Bharrat Jagdeo PPP is very afraid of free, fair, and credible elections. Should we ask why?
Let it not be forgotten, it was the very PPP, under Jagdeo’s leadership as Opposition Leader, that once supported the national call for a clean voters list and biometrics. Today, with all of Guyana’s oil wealth and legal resources (draughtsman) at their disposal, the PPP and GECOM offer only flimsy excuses for their failure to act on a process that many fought and even died to secure.
What is instructive is that the PPP and GECOM can always find reasons why something can’t be done but never once have they said, ‘This is what the people want, and we must deliver.’
The nation knows the PPP is willing to pursue its goals with vicious determination, often embracing violence under the guise that the end justifies the means. This country remembers 2019, when Irfaan Ali and a mob attempted to overturn the vehicle of then-Minister Karen Cummings in their demand for elections. And again, on March 6, 2020, when innocent schoolchildren in buses and road users on the West Coast Berbice corridor were violently attacked by PPP supporters in their aggressive campaign targeting GECOM.
Guyanese are also well aware that the PPP has been implicated in electoral malpractices and has, on occasion, benefited from them. Notable examples include:
- The 2006 General Elections, where GECOM awarded a parliamentary seat to the PPP that rightfully belonged to the Alliance for Change (AFC), and then advised the AFC to challenge the allocation—despite it being theirs from the outset.
- The 2020 Elections, during which Statements of Poll (SOPs) from PPP strongholds on the lower East Coast of Demerara were not submitted. Under normal circumstances, this omission would have raised serious questions, yet the nation was forced to accept those ballots as valid votes.
It is precisely this history that motivates right-thinking citizens to demand electoral reform, a fair playing field for all contestants. While I am on this point, GECOM is called on to ensure that hard copies of the Preliminary List of Electors (PLE) are made available to all political parties contesting the elections.
The People’s National Congress Reform / A Partnership for National Unity (PNCR/APNU) must demand that the PLE be distributed fairly. These elections are not just about the Government and the Opposition. They are about the people and all registered political parties. Each must be treated equally and in accordance with the electoral laws of Guyana.
