Dear Editor,
THE credibility of Guyana’s 2020 general elections is now under question, with both major contesting parties accusing each other of electoral fraud. This even though the elections were monitored by several recognised international groups. The APNU/AFC is arguing that the opposition rigged the election at the polling stations, while the PPP/C is claiming that the tabulation for one district was not conducted in a transparent manner. Three months after the elections, the Guyana Elections Commission remains unable to declare a winner, and is now addressing concerns regarding credibility. This raises questions related to the effectiveness of election observer missions (EOMs), and whether their presence can guarantee credible elections.
Given the rise in election observation missions, scholars have studied this question. Some have argued “that the activities of election observers can enhance elections’ local credibility, but only when locals perceive observers as being both capable of detecting fraud, and are unbiased in that pursuit” (Bush, Sarah Sunn; Prather, Lauren. International Organization; Cambridge Vol. 72, Issue. 3, Summer 2018: 659-692.). From that argument, the two requirements for EOMs to lead to credible elections are that 1) the election observers must be viewed as being capable of detecting fraud, and 2) that the observers must be perceived as being unbiased. The missions observing our March 2 elections failed on both counts.
The EOMs observing the elections focused mainly on whether the election campaigns and the Elections Day activities were peaceful, and whether the final tabulation was transparent. They did not consider the possibility that the PPP/C or any party would conduct electoral malpractice at the polling stations. The observers failed to raise concerns when a few elections presiding and returning officers were caught actively campaigning for the PPP/C. This single failure is arguably the root cause of the election’s credibility now being called into question. It also questions whether the observer missions were capable of detecting fraud.
APNU/AFC representatives at the recount exercise are reporting discoveries of several significant irregularities that occurred at the polling stations. Most of these irregularities could only have succeeded with the active support of GECOM officials at the respective polling stations. And there are clearly justified reasons to suspect that this may be true, as noted that several GECOM presiding officers actively campaigned for the PPP/C. A few have been reported and were fired, but no one knows how many of these PPP-planted officials remain undetected.
Once a single presiding officer was caught actively campaigning for the PPP/C, the observers ought to have sounded the alarm, and the neutrality of every polling station employee should have been reconfirmed. It is naive for any honest international observer to believe that party agents serving as polling station presiding officers will not be open to committing electoral fraud. If one of the allegations of misconduct being raised by the APNU/AFC, the missing OLE’s from the ballot boxes, is proven correct, then unless that issue was raised by the EOMs, we must conclude that the election observers were incapable of detecting fraud. They obviously did not pay attention to that level of detail at the polling stations, despite the presence of clear warning signs.
Election observers must also be perceived as being unbiased. Sadly, this is not the case with some of those accredited to observe our 2020 elections. It is unquestionable that most APNU/AFC supporters, and even some of the PPP’s, perceive one or more of the observer missions to be openly supportive of the PPP. Take Bruce Golding, the man who heads the OAS observer mission, for example. His long personal friendship with the PPP leader cannot be ignored, and any sensible person should understand that such friendship was bound to lead to a perception of bias. Then we have the local Private Sector Commission as an ‘independent” observer mission. How can anyone believe that there is no bias when the entire country knows that most of the members of that body are openly aligned with the PPP? Clearly, one cannot claim with any level of sincerity that the election observers are perceived locally as being unbiased.
Having failed on both requirements, we must therefore conclude that the election observers did not enhance the credibility, but rather may have played a major contributing role in destroying the chances for credible election results. Election observer missions have sometimes been accused of being wasteful ‘electoral tourism’, or, in some cases, operating as ‘a veneer for deliberate political manipulation”, aka regime change. One wonders whether any of the election observer missions accredited to the 2020 elections falls into one of these categories.
Whatever the case, one thing is for sure, by appearing to take sides, the observer missions made it difficult or impossible for Guyanese to have trust and confidence in this and future such missions. Without confidence in the impartiality of observers, how can anyone have confidence in the objectivity of the report that they produce? How can anyone now even begin to place credibility on the opinion of some of these observer missions, given their inability to detect fraud, and their apparent bias? The performance of this slate of election observers may have done irreparable damage to Guyana’s fledgling democracy.
Respectfully,
Max Mohamed
Source: https://issuu.com/guyanachroniclee-paper/docs/guyana_chronicle_epaper_30_05_2020