100 days of uncertainty… A timeline of Guyana’s elections and recount saga

The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) yesterday completed the national recount exercise, an operation which lasted 35 days, at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre (ACCC) on the East Coast of Demerara. The close of day tabulation showed the PPP/C with a total of 233,336 votes while the APNU+AFC had 217,920 votes. These figures effectively give the PPP/C a win in the recount of votes and, implicitly, the 2020 General Elections.

Certification for the votes of Region Four, the most decisive and contentious district, is expected to be signed today by the contesting parties, following which the Chief Elections Officer (CEO) will submit a report of the tabulation to the Commission. Deliberations on that report would ensue, and subsequently, a final declaration would be announced on the results of the national recount.

But how did the Elections Commission, and by extension the country, arrive at a recount exercise? How, for 100 days, was the country and its 780,000 citizens caught in a state of unrest and uncertainly, while also trying to survive and thrive in the era of the novel coronavirus? This article seeks to highlight the climatic, baffling, defining, and often disheartening moments of what was deemed as the ‘Mother of All Elections’, and what personated as the gasoline that ignited the recount.

March 2- A ‘grand’ day!
Guyanese woke up hours before the polls opened, much to the dismay of late sleepers, beckoning to their neighbors, family and friends, in some areas, to get out and vote. In some parts, persons banged pots, pans, while others blew horns. Polls kicked off smoothly as reported by the Chair of GECOM, Justice Claudette Singh (ret’d), and labeled the day as a “grand” one.

Representatives of international observation missions the Carter Center, the European Union (EU), the Commonwealth Group, and the Organisation of American States (OAS), all related that they were pleased with how the process was going.

Discrepancies delay elections results
Three days had passed and the results had not yet been announced. Slothfulness was discovered with the regional declaration of the results, which according to GECOM, was a result of discrepancies in the tabulation. The city of Georgetown and other parts of the country were caught at a standstill as they awaited the results. Stores and schools remained closed as the anxiety of citizens manifested into fear. Stakeholders ventilated their concern over the delay.

On March 5, Region Four Returning Officer (RO) Clairmont Mingo, the infamous RO who was later proven to have rigged votes in favour the governing coalition, fell ill and was rushed to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC). Mingo complained of feeling unwell and his halted tabulations temporarily. Kaieteur News was reliably informed that in Mingo’s absence, an unverified spreadsheet system was introduced to continue tabulations but this process was stopped after it was discovered that the numbers on the spreadsheet and the ones on the approved Statements of Poll (SOP) did not match.

Despite clear discrepancies process Mingo declared that the APNU+AFC had won Region Four by an enormous margin and had, essentially, triumphed in the March 2 General and Regional Elections. Chaos erupted.

Observer Statements and Interfering Russians
On March 6, following the Region Four declarations, international diplomats issued a forceful statement which declared that the results for that district lacked credibility as they were not verified by the SOPs. Head of the Carter Center Observer Mission, Jason Carter had expressed that, “Nobody knows if these results are verified or not. There is still an opportunity for this to be transparent and for the elections to gain credibility and we urge all, including GECOM, to abide by the provisions that are available for the verification of the results.”

Moving forward, still on that same day, but later in the afternoon, Executive of the PPP/C and former Attorney General Anil Nandlall had secured an injunction in the High Court to restrain officials of GECOM from declaring the results of the 2020 elections, unless the electoral process as prescribed by law is compiled with.

Further, amid tension and high emotions the Alliance For Change (AFC) had emerged with a damning allegation that the PPP/C had attempted to tamper with the integrity of the Elections results with the help of foreigners. Khemraj Ramjattan, Executive of the AFC and Prime Ministerial Candidate of the Coalition, had reported that on E-Day, the Guyana Police Force (GPF) arrested three “Russians” who were allegedly meeting with leading members of the opposition at the Marriott Hotel. Ramjattan relayed that they were forced to deport the foreign nationals after their “intelligence realized that there was some conspiracy to tap into GECOM’s computer system”.

According to Joseph Harmon, an executive of the coalition, steps were being put in place to swear in incumbent President David Granger for a second term. Against this, the Ambassadors of the ABC-EU countries issues stern warnings and hinted sanctions as a consequence of those actions.

Man shot dead during protests, rioting– Cops, women and children injured, vehicles damaged
It was absolute chaos in several parts of Region Five and Region Six as supporters of the PPP/C descended onto the streets to protest for a verification of Region Four SOP and a recount of the region as well. Hundreds of visibly angry and frustrated persons attired lit wooden pallets, tyres, old abandoned cars and buses throughout the public road from Experiment Village and throughout several other villages on the West Coast Berbice. The protestors also blocked the roads with agriculture machinery parts, an old guard hut and tree branches while chanting “GRANGER MUST GO”. One man lost his life during the riots, while schoolchildren and women were assaulted by the angry mob.

Region Four declaration unlawful– CJ orders return to vote tabulation process
Chief Justice (ag) Roxane George, on March 11, issued an order for Mingo to return to the legally prescribed procedure for tabulating the votes for the Region, after she deemed the previously declared results unlawful. The ruling follows proceedings filed by Reaz Holladar, a private citizen who challenged the GECOM on the grounds that the RO failed to comply with the electoral procedure prescribed by Section 84 of the Representation of the People Act. The CJ, in her consequential orders, instructed Mingo to return to the process by 11:00 hours the following day.

On March 13, Mingo issues another Region Four declaration, this time at the GECOM Kingston office, shortly before midnight. Once again, his numbers placed the coalition ahead in the elections.
The media had been invited to witness the declaration, but upon arrival at the location, Kaieteur News reporters were almost assaulted, and then chased away from the centre by a crowd screaming “No media!”

Photos of the declarations were sent to the media after the declaration. The Regional Election result showed that APNU+AFC gained 130,289 votes, while the PPP/C gained 74,877 votes. In the General Election, APNU+AFC got 136,057 votes and PPP/C got 77,231 votes. Votes gained by other parties were all less than a thousand. The OAS observer mission, headed by former Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding, withdrew, and noted in their statement that the required standard of fairness and transparency not met by Region 4 RO.

Recount
On March 14, President Granger and Leader of the PPP/C Bharrat Jagdeo had both agreed to recount all votes, as announced by Chairman of CARICOM and Barbadian PM, Mia Mottley. A high-level CARICOM team provided with the aim of scrutinizing the recount. The recount was expected to comment on March 16, but it was soon stalled the following day. PPP/C Executive Nandlall cited a signature from the President on the “aid memoire”, the legal document that spells out the terms and conditions of the recount. The President, at the time, explained that he was seeking legal advice before signing on.

Subsequently on March 18 a court injunction filed by APNU+AFC supporter Ulita Moore had blocked the recount. The recount, now further stalled, pushed the CARICOM team to withdraw from the country. Following the injunction, PM Mottley said, “It is clear that there are forces that do not want to see the votes recounted for whatever reason. Any Government which is sworn in without a credible and fully transparent vote count process would lack legitimacy.”
The stalled electoral process, security threats, and a growing coronavirus global pandemic caused Carter Center, EU observers to withdraw from Guyana on March 21.

Twenty-nine days after the elections, the Full Court throws out injunctions that blocked recount.
In a unanimous ruling on March 31, the Full Court, which comprised of Chief Justice (Ag) Roxanne George and Justice Narweshar Harnanan, ruled that the High Court does not have the jurisdiction to hear the application filed by Moore for an injunction to block GECOM from moving forward with plans to have a nationwide recount.
The Court of Appeal on April 5 handed down a ruling which effectively cleared the way GECOM to proceed with the nationwide recount of votes cast at the elections.

Nonetheless, after long, exhausting days, GECOM finalized proceedings for the national recount, which was then set for May 6, and to be audio-streamed on Facebook for the world to hear. Initially, the recount was given a timeline of 25 days, which could not have been achievable at the time, considering how slow GECOM was moving with the recount. An addendum was served, which extended the recount until June 13, and the declaration is to be announced three days after.

APNU+AFC fraud allegations
The APNU+AFC Coalition has, since the beginning of the recount, made objections it purported to be serious enough to question the credibility of the electoral process, as it occurred on March 2, 2020. As the recount continued, representatives of the Coalition began to tabulate the allegations its agents were making, and used them as the basis for accuse the PPP/C of electoral fraud. To support its campaign, it had erected its very own media centre on the lawns of the National Aquatic Centre to disseminate information, and dubbed the campaign ‘Operation Eagle-eye’.

The allegations made by the Coalition, for each polling station, were noted in the observation report prepared during the recount for its corresponding ballot box. The party’s claims generally focused on missing documents, a failure by GECOM to reconcile all of the documents meant to be in the ballot boxes, and other procedural irregularities, as well as accusations that votes were cast using the identities of persons who are dead or who were out of the jurisdiction on Election Day. As the claims made by the Coalition began to accumulate, members of the media began to challenge the Coalition to provide verifiable proof of its claims, but it has not provided any, to date. Many of the claims made, particularly in relation to migrant voters, turned out to be false, after they were ventilated in the press.

Other political parties, including the PPP/C, began to object to the Elections Commission allowing the Coalition to question the lawfulness of the process, arguing that any investigation of such matters should be the exclusive jurisdiction of the Court. But the Chair of GECOM, Justice Claudette Singh decided to collect evidence from the Coalition about its claims of ‘dead voters’, and to investigate claims of ‘migrant voters’ by asking the Immigration Department, run by the Police, to assist GECOM in verifying the accuracy of the claims.

The Department had responded by providing a report claiming that 172 persons were out of the country. However, Kaieteur News collected testimonies from 24 persons who refuted the information from the Immigration Department as inaccurate, after finding out that their names were on the list. In response, the Police accused those persons of returning to Guyana illegally.

In addition, GECOM’s Public Relations Officer Yolanda Ward said that GECOM did not check the list it got from the Coalition, to determine whether ballots were indeed issued to the names on it.
Coming down to the end of recount, the Coalition also notably attempted to have valid votes cast at 29 polling stations from the East Coast of Demerara (ECD) – a stronghold of the PPP/C – discarded due to the fact that certain statutory documents were not found when the boxes were opened. One Returning Officer, Paul Jaisingh, wrote to the GECOM Chair, telling her that he acted on instructions from the Clerk to the Region Four Returning Officer, when he told his Presiding Officers to put the documents in the poll bags, instead of the ballot boxes.

In response, the GECOM Secretariat claimed that a group of Region Four DROs refuted Jaisingh’s claim, with a joint statement that they had received instructions to ensure all the documents were placed in the ballot boxes. But GECOM refused to provide any proof that the letter existed. More evidence later emerged that DROs were instructed to have their POs leave documents out of the ballot boxes, when one PO posted screenshots of a WhatsApp Group conversation where his DRO’s Clerk forwarded such instructions to the POs at the close of poll. Nevertheless, the GECOM Chair decided to allow the tabulation of the valid votes for the 29 boxes and recount went on smoothly.

The Coalition, in turn, decided to use the inclusion of the boxes as one of the bases on which it argued that the results of the recount cannot be considered credible. It argued that the tabulation of the results, placing the PPP/C in the lead, was not yet validated. This takes us to present day with the final declaration expected from GECOM, unless some other intervention prolongs the saga.