By Arif Bulkan, Ulele Burnham and Alissa Trotz
The nation is now 21 days away from an epochal election.
Some 23 years ago, Guyanese at home and in the diaspora mobilized to inaugurate an era of effective participatory democracy characterized by, at the very least, elections that were free and fair. Effective political participation and representation should, of course, be our ultimate goal with a free and fair electoral process merely a crucial ingredient. As we approach the May 11 election day deadline, we have been treated to a series of increasingly desperate pronouncements from a licentious ruling party still seeking to cling to power while claiming to be the architect of a democratic and prosperous Guyana. We have watched those in whom that hope was reposed in 1992 become transmogrified, especially after 1997, into unapologetic defenders of oligarchic entitlement. This election is foregrounded by resounding calls for change, not orchestrated by opposition parties but, in the main, driven by the energy of ordinary Guyanese who have had enough of not having enough. It is, however, the very proximity of a victory for the opposition coalition, energized as it has been by the determination of those who can take no more of the same, that makes it essential to ensure that the vote is free and fair.
To date, a number of troubling irregularities continue to dog the electoral process, of which the most pivotal relates to the electoral list. There are now over 90,000 more registered voters on the official GECOM list than there were on the list for the 2011 elections, an increase of some 20%. That is, there were 475,496 electors in 2011, while the current list for the May elections stands at some 570,786 electors. Further, according to these numbers, some 75% of a population of 747,884 (according to the 2012 Guyana Census) are now of voting age and eligible to vote (compared with 63% in the 2011 elections).
One explanation of this dramatic increase in the electorate has been that there are thousands of naturalized Guyanese who populate the list. Meanwhile, an April 18th Stabroek News article reported GECOM’s Chairman Steve Surujbally citing “outreach and more frequent registration exercises, increased issuing of birth certificates, civic and voter education, motivated citizenry as well as movement of citizens from often isolated or remote areas to more urban settings as likely reasons for the increase in registration.” However, the Chairman has not taken it upon himself to supply a detailed breakdown of the figures, so this purported explanation is, at best, mere speculation.
In the same article the Chairman asks rhetorically whether he would compromise his reputation in the twilight of his career, but that is a highly intangible and unknowable factor that does not address the core issue. More pertinently, the Chairman’s reputation has no probative bearing on a matter as amenable to objective verification as that of the integrity of the voters’ list. The electorate does not need platitudes from an official performing vital functions of state, but should be afforded a meticulous and detailed breakdown of figures and statistics against which claims of dramatic population increase and unusual demographic distribution can be objectively and transparently tested. Elections are a serious matter demanding scrupulous accountability from those who have been tasked with managing them.
As it stands now, the sharp and unexplained increase in voter registration is profoundly troubling, especially since current migration rates and the most recent Census results reveal a population in unrelenting decline. These unknowns make it imperative that all of those who are invested in real representative democracy act so as to protect the integrity of the vote on May 11th 2015.
The fairness of an election cannot be measured only by the actual casting of a ballot or the existence of procedures designed to guarantee the accurate computation of results. Naturally such measures represent a non-negotiable minimum, but they remain just that: a minimum. A truly democratic process requires adherence to certain standards to ensure that there are no hidden advantages, that there is equity throughout the process, and that voters are able to make an informed decision on Election Day. Serious deficits are evident in all these areas.
The absence of laws and policies to regulate campaign financing is one such deficiency, and one which has enabled the ruling PPP/C to secure an unfair advantage over its competitors. In the absence of any legal requirement to report contributions, the public does not know which persons or entities have contributed to any of the campaigns. Nor is it apprised of whether there are businessmen and women amongst a particular contesting party’s supporters who will be unethically rewarded for their loyalty in the event of victory. But what the public does know is fairly devastating, for the shocking fact has just been disclosed that the Cabinet approved US$13,100.00 or 2.7 million Guyana dollars for a “diaspora outreach programme” which, it is said, turned out to be a naked PPP/C campaign event in North America. Former President Jagdeo, Prime Ministerial candidate Harper and her husband, and Ministers Robert Persaud and Irfaan Ali all attended a series of PPP/C party fund-raising events in the US and Canada, apparently at taxpayers’ expense. If this is correct – and it would appear to be so since it was not denied by Dr. Luncheon – it is an untrammeled abuse of power, entailing the use of public funds for private (PPP) purposes. Sadly, it is not an isolated occurrence but is symptomatic of a pattern of abuse of the national treasury for narrow partisan gain.
As to the conduct of the election campaign, here again the ruling PPP/C has monopolized the resources of the state to its advantage. First, the state-owned media such as the Chronicle and NCN have been open in their support of the ruling party, while access has been denied to the competing parties. Not content with this unfair advantage, the state media have outdone themselves in their irresponsibility and partisanship; so inflammatory have been some of the Chronicle editorials that the Media Monitoring Unit (MMU) has been moved to reprimand the newspaper. One of the offending editorials actually hinted at bloodshed and the death of innocents were the coalition to win, a journalistic low that the MMU unequivocally denounced. The beneficiary of these excesses is the incumbent executive, which has been able to commandeer a publicly funded entity – the ship of state – and use it to its advantage during the entire period of the campaign.
Nonetheless, there remains a compelling obligation on all of those who can make a difference to do all that can be done in this imperfect environment to protect the vote on Election Day. Those who seek a fair outcome should encourage equal oversight by all opposition parties of each and every one of the 2260 places of poll. With the die loaded, absolute vigilance on Election Day may be the only way of ensuring that those who have had enough (of not having enough) are heard.