Eighty-four thousand

When the results of the General and Regional Elections are finally announced at the culmination of the processes following the recount of votes, hopefully in the very near future, it will be difficult, if not impossible to put behind us all of the shenanigans that delayed and disrupted what should have been a smooth process. As the common saying goes, there are some things you just cannot `unsee’, or as in this instance, forget.

Each more incredulous than the one before it, the high jinks played out with not just Guyana, but the international community as a captive audience, were of the sort that should have caused some amount of embarrassment to the actors. You see, the script was weak, forcing the players to extemporise and there were obviously too many directors. Yet, shamelessly, the players persisted. It was like watching a bad soap opera.

However, it is unlikely that anything will top the claim rolled out by the APNU+AFC propaganda machinery on Sunday last that over 84,000 votes were likely affected by “massive electoral fraud”. It is the kind of statement that could lend to comedy, if the situation were not a serious one and it, quite possibly, knocks District 4 Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo’s mischief clean out of the water.

One would do well to recall at this point that before Mr Mingo’s sleight of hand failed miserably, the voting process had been declared smooth by at least one team of international observers and free and fair by Chair of the Guyana Elections Commission (Gecom) Justice Claudette Singh as well as incumbent president David Granger. Once Mr Mingo’s attempt at making an illegitimate declaration was thwarted owing to the diligence of agents from other parties, which should have been expected, the stage was set for all sorts of spins and manoeuvres.

The recount just completed was only grudgingly agreed to after the APNU+AFC hit a brick wall of pressure for full verification of the Region Four vote for a credible result from Guyanese at home and abroad as well as the Commonwealth, European Union, Organisation of American States, Carter Center and Caricom observer groups. The envoys of the US, the UK, and Canada along with others also lent their voices to the call.

The process took 33 days, time during which there could have been a dignified dismount or step back, with perhaps the crafting of a narrative that could lend to the perception of an error being made in the first place. But decency is not the name of the game. And so, the second offensive was launched as the recount began to gain momentum. 

It was mere days after President Granger declared that the March 2 General and Regional Elections were free, fair and orderly that the APNU+AFC charged that it had discerned “clear and unmistakable patterns of irregularities, discrepancies and worse” while observing the recount process. It piled on to this by claiming that there were “countless” instances of persons who had long migrated and were not in Guyana on polling day recorded as having voted. Further, the coalition alleged, so had “countless dead people”. Apparently, too, numerous people who had not uplifted their ID cards from Gecom for many years had also voted in PPP stronghold areas. It would appear that on Sunday, the APNU+AFC completed counting the ‘countless’ and the ‘numerous’ and emerged with its total of upwards of 84,000.

What this is, of course, aside from being an extremely poor attempt at discrediting the recount, is a slap in the face of all the people who worked on election day. This statement by the APNU+AFC disparages its own party agents as well as the polling clerks, their supervisors, the returning officers, and other officials and the local and international observers. Because if the APNU+AFC is to be believed, these people either did not do their jobs correctly or were all involved in a conspiracy to introduce over 84,000 fraudulent votes in favour of the PPP/C. Ludicrous. One wonders if the person writing and putting out that statement did so with a straight face.

Strangely, it would appear, these “unmistakeable discrepancies” which could only have occurred on polling day, did not matter later in March when the coalition, claiming a win, was pushing for the swearing-in of President Granger. In fact, when the question of electoral fraud was raised with APNU+AFC campaign co-chair Joseph Harmon on March 26, he was quoted as saying, “Fraud is not a political term. It is a legal concept which requires specific averments that speak to fraud…” Whatever that means. Yet, here we are.

What is mind-boggling at this point though is how many people, many of whom are in respected professions, are still willing to keep going down this rabbit hole of ignominy. Thus far, AFC executive and former business minister Dominic Gaskin appears to be the only one taking the moral high ground, publicly at least. It would appear, sadly, that everyone else has stopped looking in the mirror.