The truth about the 1992 elections

May 03, 2020 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Free and fair elections would not have been possible in Guyana had it not been for an event which took place thirty years ago on the other side of the world. On the 9th November 1989, the Berlin Wall came down and this led the demise of eastern European communism and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union.
The West then started promoting democracy around the world. The economic side of liberalism held that free markets prosper best under democratic conditions. As such, the West was keen to encourage democratic governments in order to consolidate the neo-liberal order which emerged after 1989.
The West had previously turned a blind eye to rigged elections in Guyana between 1968 and 1985 because they had viewed Burnham as a lesser than Jagan who was seen as a communist. The Americans therefore turned a blind eye to Burnham’s electoral theatrics and even took covert action to keep Jagan out of power.
As elections neared in 1990, the communist bogey could no longer be used to turn a blind eye to rigging. The demands for free and fair elections in Guyana became more vocal and reached all the way to Washington. Senator Edward Kennedy came out in support of free and fair elections. Later, President George Bush, in a Republic Day congratulatory message to President Hoyte, expressed hope that the 1990 elections would be free and fair. Hoyte, unlike some of the hare-brained lieutenants, would have decoded the political warnings in that congratulatory note.
He already had a close shave within the Caribbean Community. After the rigged elections of 1985, Eugenia Charles wanted to kick Guyana out of the Caribbean Community. It was only on account of a last minute intervention by the leaders at a meeting in Mustique that Hoyte was able to avoid serious sanctions from Caricom.
The writing was therefore on the wall. But the then Elections Commission was still controlled by the old riggers, including one former Chief Justice by the name of Sir Harold Bollers.
The Voters’ List which was produced for 1990 was found to be flawed. Two independent reviews were undertaken of the list and these found it to be highly defective.
As a result of local and international pressure and through the meditation of former United States President Jimmy Carter, President Hoyte later agreed to a number of reforms including new house-to-house registration, the counting of votes at the places of poll and the reconstitution of the Elections Commission. House-to- house registration meant that the elections had to be postponed.
As a result of agreeing to these reforms, Hoyte faced stiff resistance within his party. He however believed that he had no choice and that the free world would not accept him as a legitimate President unless there were free and fair elections. He was also led to believe that he could win free and fair elections. There was a group of business persons which called themselves the Committee for the Re-election of the President (CREEP). They peddled the idea to Hoyte that he could win.
Hoyte had problems to contend with within his party. He faced a challenge to his leadership as the 1992 elections approached. It took the intervention of Ptolemy Reid, an elder in the PNC, for the challenge to be withdrawn. But it was clear by then that there was a faction in the PNC that was opposed to free and fair elections.
Elections were set for October 5th 1992. On the morning of the elections, the faction opposed to Hoyte began to mobilize persons to try to stop the elections. Persons were brought in by bus to the Election Commission headquarters on Croal Street. One of the main persons behind the bussing in of protestors was the wife of a businessman. She is still around and may be willing to speak about her role. The pretext for the protests was that persons could not find their names on the Voters’ List.
The Elections Commission was stoned. The agitators were bent on overturning the elections. It took a call from the US State Department before Hoyte took action to send in reinforcements to protect the Elections Commission.
The first set of results came in were from Essequibo. When another newspaper reported that the PPPC had won 70% of the votes, looting broke out in the city. A PNC strongman was in the middle of the melee. He later explained that he was calming the rioters. There are persons in Guyana with long memories who would dispute his explanation.
As the results trickled in, the Carter Center did something called a ‘Quick Count’. This is not an exit poll. It is a statistical tool in which a sample of results from polling stations is used to project the results of the elections within a very small margin of error.
The Carter Quick Count indicated that the PPPC would win the elections. Carter shared this information with President Hoyte. But it was not on this basis that Hoyte eventually conceded. He only conceded after it became obvious that even if he secured all the votes of all the polling stations whose results were not yet declared, he still could not win.
The PPPC won the elections convincingly. But that victory would not have been possible had the Berlin Wall not been punctured in November of 1989, thirty years ago.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)