It is the hope of Guyanese that GECOM will choose well

Dear Editor,

I have written to the GECOM Chairperson, Ret’d. Justice of Appeal Claudette Singh, suggesting a just, legal and non-partisan standard of proof that must be provided by any party that is asserting discrepancies and anomalies in the General and Regional Elections (G&RE) and/or the National Recount (NR).  Clearly, that party must not only show evidence of discrepancies and anomalies, but must also prove that those discrepancies and anomalies would invalidate the 2020 GR&E and/or the NR.

The suggested standard of proof involves a demonstration that the unearthed, evidence-backed, discrepancies and anomalies would statistically significantly alter the distribution of voters after the recount is completed:  Putting aside the results themselves, the statistical test must show that the populations (i.e., the statistical characteristics of the March 2, 2020 voters) are different before and after the NR.  Not only did I supply an example of what is required, but I also pointed out that this standard of proof would warrant the completion of the NR.  Once the NR is complete however, GECOM would a fortiori have no alternative but to use the NR data to make a declaration, because this data would be free of the very discrepancies and anomalies that were the basis of the challenge to the 2020 G&RE and/or the NR itself!

In my letter to the Chairperson of GECOM, I also addressed the standard of proof that would be required if the NR is permanently interrupted for whatever reason, and the second has to do with the eventuality of the NR data and/or process or both being declared to be illegal by a court of law.  In either of these cases, GECOM will have to resort to the still undisclosed SoPs, or to one or the other of the now notorious “Mingo declarations” for Region 4.

But I pointed out that the two declarations made by the Returning Officer for Region 4 were, statistically speaking, unrelated to each other, even though they were arrived at using the same process for the same population of votes.  It is almost as if the two Region 4 declarations made by the Returning Officer relate to two different elections.  This latter is a very serious finding, as it calls into serious question both the declarations made by the Returning Officer for Region 4,  and it compounds the more obvious problem created by the clearly incorrect tallies for the third parties that contested the 2020 General Elections in the “Mingo” declarations.

A final and fatal difficulty with these declarations is that GECOM is yet to state why it chose the second of the Region Four declarations, even though they both yielded the same electoral outcome.  For these various reasons, the two declarations made by the Returning Officer for Region Four, and therefore the Final Declaration that is being held in abeyance, are statistical impossibilities.

To the many people, some of whom have been good and close colleagues over the years, who now contend that democracy is more than the counting of votes; and who now strain at the “anomalies and discrepancies” gnat while joyously swallowing a camel named  Mingo, I wish to point out that politically independent Guyanese who dread that the NR data may not be used to make a final declaration are not (even) afraid of ethnic domination.  They are, instead, afraid of “party paramountcy,” and all that implies for our future.

They may recall that after the commodity price booms of the 1970s, Guyana, a resource-rich and ethnically diverse country, had its first experience of the resource curse, during which large scale nationalisations were followed by large and rising fiscal deficits and public debt, severe shortages, political conflicts, and social upheavals.

Now, having become an oil exporter this year, Guyana is also on the verge of something equally monumental.  I refer to the possibility of a democratic turnover that would defy our political history of decades long incumbency by one or the other of the major political parties, and will send a strong signal to any incumbent that we, the people of Guyana, are ready and able to remove them from power by our votes.

We are at a fork in the road, one that might prove to be last we’d ever have in our long quest for inclusive, sustainable development.  Our future will look back on today, and say with Dickens, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way …”

GECOM must make a collective decision on behalf of us all.  It is my hope and prayer, as it is the hope and prayer of so many other Guyanese, that it would choose well.

Yours faithfully,

Thomas B. Singh