— Nagamootoo, Ramjattan say involvement of Cambridge Analytica, Mercury, threat to elections in Guyana
— urges public to support legislation against such companies
AS long as political parties are allowed to utilise the services of unprincipled companies which harness social media and personal data to influence elections, countries like Guyana will never be able to assure its citizens untarnished democratic processes and political equality.
This was a sentiment shared by APNU+AFC Prime Ministerial Candidate, Khemraj Ramjattan and Prime Minister, Moses Nagamootoo, on separate occasions.
Just recently, on June 14, 2020, Brittany Kaiser of Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower, appearing on The Red Line Podcast, explained how Cambridge Analytica was contracted by the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) since 2013 to control the course of elections in its favour.
Cambridge Analytica is a data marketing firm that uses data to change audience behavior. It has been exposed internationally for its practices of data harvesting from tens of millions of Facebook users — in some cases, private messages. The data is then used to identify target voter groups with designed targeted messages to influence opinion.
Meanwhile, Kaiser is the former Director of Programme Development at Cambridge Analytica. Revealing information previously under wraps, she said that former PPP/C President, Donald Ramotar, paid Analytica G$80M for its services for the manipulation of data.
“In 2013, the SEL group of Cambridge Analytica first started having discussions with President Ramotar while engaging with the People’s Progressive Party,” she stated on the programme.
“They conducted the type of political research that I talked to you about earlier, they did a behavioural poll and what they call a Target Audience Analysis (TAA) and that is large scale national research where they would have done those qualitative focus groups and then quantitative surveys in order to understand as much as possible from the population. From their politics to their culture to their affiliations, the way that they do their decision making…and that allowed them to go about an entire elections strategy based on what they found out from that research.”
Kaiser said that the PPP/C used the information for its advertisement and communication strategies and had a satellite team both in-country and internationally from the London Headquarters.
She said: “Not all countries actually allow political support from abroad or even political support from foreigners so it’s usually a satellite team that can be hidden in-country and is not obvious to the opposition that foreign assistance is active.”
Kaiser believes that even with the assistance the PPP/C lost the elections either because it did not sufficiently prepare for the elections; did not spend enough money; did not have a good candidate or, possibly, a combination of all three.
“From what I can see in the documents that I’m looking at, it seems like the PPP was going to have a really hard time in that elections regardless of if they had support or not. They were having trouble engaging with their base and a lot of people were completely unconvinced by President Ramotar’s effectiveness in office,” she explained.
INTERESTING LINKS
Appearing on an APNU+AFC programme on Friday, APNU+AFC Prime Ministerial Candidate and Minister of Public Security, Khemraj Ramjattan, said that it was only through the airing of the podcast that he learnt that members of Cambridge Analytica had been present in the country.
He said that Kaiser’s comments put his thoughts back to when members of the government found out on the day of the March 2, 2020 General and Regional elections that representatives of Mercury Public Affairs — an American firm contracted by the PPP/C in March 2019 — were in the country and were found in possession of cyber equipment.
The firm was embroiled in the probe into alleged Russian interference in U.S. elections but was nonetheless hired by the PPP/C to help run its elections campaign. At the time, Leader of the Opposition, Bahrrat Jagdeo, described the move to hire Mercury Public Affairs as “proactive.”
When Ramjattan raised the allegation of Russian interference after being informed of such by the Guyana Police Force (GPF), cyber equipment including computers and flash drives were seized; the three men were questioned and were subsequently deported from the country.
“They were seen talking to some PPP/C members at the Marriott. I’m not lying, that’s the information we have, we have photographs and, moreover, one conceded that he was talking to the Leader of the Opposition,” Ramjattan stated.
The Opposition Leader has acknowledged that the firm was contracted for G$34M to lobby U.S. support for his party and, as a result, the country has since seen several messages coming from U.S. congressmen on the Guyana situation which some have argued amount to interference.
The Public Security Minister does not believe that the G$34M is being paid for the said cause. He stated on Friday: “It is important to note that that kind of money, it could not have been that they are lobbying congressmen. When we started the Alliance For Change, myself, Raphael [Trotman] and a number of people…we utilised our AFC Chapter in Atlanta, in Washington DC, in New York and so on, to plead with them to go meet Senator Cardin and these important people. You don’t have to pay them to meet.”
Ramjattan believes that the money was used to create political ads, much like the types Cambridge Analytica specialises in, to alter the course of the elections. He said that the GPF is still doing investigations in relation to the matter.
A SERIOUS MATTER
Expounding further, Ramjattan said that while some Guyanese have found humour in the situation of Russian interference, fueled by the Opposition to discredit the suspicions, persons should open their eyes and actually question the involvement of such companies in Guyana’s elections, companies that have been pinpointed in grave cases of interference.
“People could say that we are only jumping to conclusions but if you now know what Cambridge Analytica can do, what Mercury can do, what interference can come from people of that ilk, who can throw your psycho-demographics and then push nasty disinformation and fake news and all of that. That’s probably where we got distracted from and that is where our gaze ought to have been…the people will have to urge that there is legislation against these things,” Ramjattan said.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister, Moses Nagamootoo said in his Sunday column, ‘My Turn’: “It is clear that there are foreign footprints all over Guyana’s general and local government elections in 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2020, and since there are no campaign financing laws, it would be, for now, almost impossible to trace the billions lavished by the PPP/C on dirty tricks.”
He said that it is clear that, with the records showing a decline of votes to the PPP/C since 2001, the party has turned to ulterior motives. Nagamootoo said that while the party has succeeded in influencing many foreign diplomats to speak on the Guyana situation in its favour, he is pleased that not all in the international community have taken up such stance.
On the other hand, Ramjattan urged Guyanese, especially the younger generation, to seek out higher education in the field of data and technology so that they can provide information to their country on how to deal with such matters. He said that unless action is taken, Guyana’s democracy remains in danger.
Source: https://issuu.com/guyanachroniclee-paper/docs/guyana_chronicle_epaper_06_22_2020