Guyana came close to becoming a pariah state

Feb 01, 2022 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – The attempt to rig the 2020 general and regional elections inflicted the greatest harm to Guyana’s regional and international reputation. Those who participated in the attempted rigging and those who tried to benefit from that rigging stand indicted today for the damage their actions did to Guyana’s credibility.
Never before were so many international organisations and so many notable statesmen forced to make statements to try to prevent Guyana going over the brink. But there was also real fear within the Caribbean that democracy was under threat in Guyana and would pose a serious embarrassment to the regionalism.
Guyana stood shamed in the eyes of the international community. Guyana was set to become an outcast because of those who were complicit in engineering electoral fraud as well as by the fanciful narratives which were provided to suggest massive irregularities.
The international community rejected the attempts to distort the results of the elections during the tabulation process. The Organization of American States (OAS) – which was invited by the APNU+AFC to observe the elections – issued a statement which decried the attempt to manipulate the tabulations.
The OAS said that such manipulation was unlikely to produce a credible result. The statement noted that the Chief of Mission informed the OAS Secretary General of the events on the ground, stressing the importance of ensuring that a strong message was sent regarding the urgency of determining and securing the will of the people of Guyana.
In reporting back to the OAS about the conduct of the tabulations, the Head of the OAS Observer Mission noted that he had never before “seen a more transparent attempt to alter the results of an election.”
Later, following a decision of the Caribbean Court of Justice that head of the Mission, Bruce Golding was to question whether the incumbent APNU+AFC government would accept the decision of the CCJ. He hinted that the “behaviour of the functionaries of the government up to now raises serious doubt” that they would.
By mid-July, the OAS was growing tired of the shenanigans. In a statement on July 11, the regional organisation quoted Article 1 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter which provides that the people of the region have a right to democracy. The OAS stated that the time had long passed for the then leaders of Guyana to comply with their democratic responsibilities and allow the newly elected government to take its place. Not only did this statement suggest that the APNU+AFC government was in contravention of democratic norms but it clearly also left the regime isolated within the OAS.
Around the same time, the Commonwealth issued a stern statement in which it indicated that the will of the people as expressed in the 2nd March, 2020 General and Regional Elections must be respected for democracy to prevail in Guyana.
The APNU + AFC’s slender hope of scuttling the elections, rested on the facetious grounds that the dead and migrated persons voted during the elections. The Coalition refused to allow the Carter Center Team to return for the Recount.
The Coalition was hoping that the Caricom Audit Team would offer it some redemption. The Coalition went as far as saying that it considered the Caricom Audit team as the only credible interlocutor.
But the Caricom Audit Report described the APNU+AFC’s objections during the Recount as a fishing expedition. The Report stated the objections resulted in considerable time being wasted during the Recount.
The Audit Team concluded that it “did not witness anything which would render the recount, and by extension, the casting of the ballot on March 2, so grievously deficient procedurally or technically (despite some irregularities) or sufficiently deficient to have thwarted the will of the people, and consequently preventing the election results and its declaration by GECOM from reflecting the will of the voters. The actual count of the vote was indeed transparent.”
Despite this, the APNU+AFC continued its spurious attempt to annul the Recount results. It did not succeed, and was left utterly discredited, disgraced and isolated.
It is believed that within the Caribbean, there were real fears that the attempted rigging would have seen Guyana becoming once again the pariah of the Region. It is also suspected that unlike in the distant past when during the Cold War, the Caribbean Heads had turned a blind eye of electoral rigging, this time, they were in no mood to allow the APNU+AFC to discredit the regional integration movement.
If over the past two years there has not been any harm to Guyana’s international relations, it was through the attempt to return Guyana to an outcast within the democratic fold of nations. No one country has countenanced the narrative, which was spun by the APNU+AFC. If Guyana’s international reputation has suffered a hit, it has nothing to do with the post August 2020 period and everything to do with the preceding period.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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