Introduction
Today marks one year to the day since Guyanese went to the polls to exercise their democratic right, triggering a five-month battle to uphold free and fair elections which saw thousands of persons rallying to defend democracy and the international community exerting swingeing pressure on the APNU+AFC government to comply with democratic principles.
It was not until August 2nd 2020 that Irfaan Ali was sworn in as President and after months of crises over what were naked attempts to rig the elections and reinstall the incumbent President David Granger.
Despite having agreed to a CARICOM supervised recount of all of the ballots from the March 2nd elections which was meant to form the basis for a long-awaited declaration of the result, Granger repudiated the findings of the recount which showed that the PPP/C had won and surrogates for APNU+AFC then initiated several cases and appeals in the court to thwart a lawful declaration. These efforts to prevent the swearing in culminated at the end of July after a defeat for an APNU+AFC supporter at the Court of Appeal and unrelenting pressure from the US, UK, Cana-da, the European Union, the Organisation of American States (OAS), the Common-wealth, CARICOM and others for the recount result to be used as the basis for swearing in Ali.