ELECTORAL CONDITIONS
IN GUYANA
Summary of Conclusions
In the 24 years since independence, massive, systematic
electoral fraud has denied the Guyanese people their right to
freely elect their government. Unable to express themselves
politically in free and fair elections and constricted by the
repressive pressures of a single, dominant party, hundreds of
thousands of Guyanese have sought freedom by emigrating,
principally to the United States and Canada.
Today, Guyana stands at a human rights crossroads. A
national election, the first in five years, must be held by March
1991. If that election is free and fair, Guyana could regain the
road to political freedom and the restoration of national
confidence. But a free and fair election cannot be held without
fundamental changes in the deeply flawed Guyanese electoral
process. The country's current electoral machinery is ideally
suited for manipulation by the governing party -- an opportunity
for fraud which the government has repeatedly seized. If the
election is to be free and fair and perceived as such, the entire
process must be opened to public scrutiny, in two fundamental
ways.
2
First, the entire electoral process must be opened to
international observers. Although polling agents of the
opposition parties are permitted by law to observe all aspects of
the voting, police and electoral officials acting at the behest
of the governing party have in the past prevented these polling
agents from witnessing crucial portions of the electoral process.
The presence of trained and able international observers to
witness every aspect of the electoral process, from the creation
of the lists of voters through the balloting on election day to
the final counting of the votes, is indispensable to bolster
domestic monitoring efforts. A substantial international observer
presence, both in its own right and as a tool to strengthen
domestic polling agents, will either deter the numerous abuses
reported in past elections or, should such abuses reoccur, permit
them to be recorded more completely and reported for all to
judge.
The government's recent gesture in this direction -- the
enactment of a statute authorizing the President to invite
international observers -- seems designed more to restrict and
control observers than to facilitate their presence and
participation. In particular, the statute limits observers to
those specifically invited by the President and enforces that
limitation by making it a felony for anyone else to "impersonate
an observer." Furthermore, as of the date that this report went
to press, the President has announced his intention to limit his
3
invitation to a team selected by the Secretary General of the
Commonwealth and a team led by former US President Carter. The
strategy of issuing an initiation to the Commonwealth group seems
further intended to tightly circumscribe any observer role, given
the historically intimate relationship of the Commonwealth
organization to the Guyanese government: until earlier this year,
the Secretary General of the Commonwealth was a former member of
the Guyanese government who had served as Attorney General when
the current electoral statute was enacted. The invitation to
President Carter may also prove unavailing if the government
schedules the national election too close to the December 16
Haitian elections, which President Carter is already committed to
monitor.
Second, steps must be taken to ensure that both
international observers and domestic polling agents are able to
monitor the ballots from the moment they are cast until the time
they are counted. Given the history of fraud when other methods
designed to serve this purpose have been used, advocates of
electoral reform in Guyana universally endorse the simple method
of performing a preliminary count of all ballots at the polling
place. The current method of counting -- delaying the count for
as much as 48 hours while the ballot boxes are transported,
largely without independent scrutiny, to a handful of central
counting stations -- is widely recognized in Guyana as a vehicle
for fraud. To date, the government has stubbornly resisted the
4
disarmingly simple step of tabulating votes at polling places,
despite the absence of any persuasive counter arguments. This
very resistance confirms the widespread belief that the
government is not committed to holding a fair election.
Besides these two basic changes, neither of which would
require any new legislation or amendment of the Constitution,
other things can be done to facilitate the conduct of a free and
fair election. First, to permit a fair campaign, restrictions on
free assembly and access to the press for all opposition parties
should be lifted. Second, as a supplement to formal election
observers, the press, both domestic and international, should be
permitted full access to all parts of the electoral process, as
President Hoyte promised in a recent interview. Third, the
electoral laws should be enforced in the open spirit promised by
the governmental officials interviewed by Americas Watch.
Specifically, as discussed in more detail below, the process by
which voter lists are generated and corrected must be made
considerably more open and flexible than has previously been the
case, and those responsible for administering polling places on
election day must adhere to the laws limiting their powers and
protecting the rights of monitors and observers. A fourth helpful
step would be to accept the technical assistance offered by a
number of sources, including the United States Government, in
areas designed to help secure the integrity of the electoral
process, such as the printing of ballots, the provision of ballot
5
boxes, transportation, communications and the like.
Finally, in the longer term, the supposedly independent
Electoral Commission should be reformed or replaced because it
has lost all semblance of independence. Sufficient safeguards
should be adopted to prevent the subversion of that body's
independent authority by any particular government.
The Americas Watch Investigative Mission
This report is based on an Americas Watch investigative
mission to Guyana, from July 29 through August 5, 1990. The
Americas Watch observer, New York attorney Jeffrey C. Slade, was
the first representative of an independent, international human
rights organization to enter Guyana to inquire into the openness
and fairness of the national electoral process since Lord Avebury
of the British Parliamentary Human Rights Group ("BPHRG") led a
team to observe the national election in December 1980. In the
spring of 1985, Americas Watch and the BPHRG were invited to
Guyana by a group of political, religious and civic organizations
to report on whether conditions existed for the holding of a free
and fair election, but the government declined to cooperate with
the mission. Lord Chitnis of the BPHRG then requested a visa to
visit Guyana, and that was refused. Finally, Americas Watch and
the BPHRG sent a mission to neighboring Trinidad, where they met
with a number of Guyanese political leaders in May 1985. The
report of that mission, entitled Political Freedom in Guyana,
6
will be discussed in more detail below.
In March 1990, Americas Watch requested permission to send
an investigative mission to Guyana, again for the purpose of
examining the openness and fairness of the electoral process in
light of the anticipated national election. The government
responded that it would not be "convenient" for the mission to
come before the end of July. A second application in April
resulted in a visa for a trip in late July and early August, a
mutually agreed time.
After the issuance of the visa, the government cooperated
fully with the mission. A governmental official acted as liaison,
scheduling interviews with all officials to whom the mission
requested access. (A full list of the officials and other
individuals interviewed is attached as an appendix to this
report.) Unfortunately, the mission coincided with the annual
summit meeting of leaders of the Caricom nations, held in
Jamaica. A number of officials who might otherwise have been
interviewed were thus unavailable, including President Hugh
Desmond Hoyte. The mission also met with representatives of a
broad range of Guyanese society, including members of the major
political parties, labor unions, the bar, and religious and human
rights organizations.
In addition, the mission took note of materials prepared by
other groups on past elections. Particularly instructive were the
reports of the last two international missions: Something To
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Remember, The Report of the International Team of Observers at
the Elections in Guyana, December 1980, prepared by the BPHRG
group; and the previously mentioned joint report of the 1985
Americas Watch and BPHRG mission, Political Freedom in Guyana.
This report will not attempt to repeat the analysis of those two
documents but will refer to their conclusions as background.
Historical Background
The last Guyanese national election universally acknowledged
to have been free and fair was held in 1964. That election, a
prelude to national independence in 1966, was the first held
under the system of proportional representation. Under the
previous "first-past-the-post" model, the People's Progressive
Party ("PPP"), an avowedly Marxist party founded by Dr. Cheddi
Jagan and others in the early 1950s, had consistently won
governmental majorities though securing only a plurality of the
votes cast.*
A second party, the People's National Congress
("PNC"), which had broken away from the PPP in the mid-1950s
under the leadership of Forbes Burnham, had also gained
considerable support.
Leadership by the PPP had produced a series of
*
Under a "first-past-the-post" system, each legislative district
elects the individual who receives the most votes in that
district. By winning a majority of districts, a party can achieve
a majority in the Legislature even though its national vote
totals less than a majority.
8
confrontations with the British colonial administration,
including the suspension of the Constitution in 1953 to prevent
"communist subversion" and an 80-day general strike in 1963. The
British, uncomfortable with PPP governments, were reluctant to
permit full independence if the PPP would continue in power. The
solution, which paved the way to the 1964 election, was the
proportional representation system proposed by the British
Colonial Secretary. Under this system, membership in the Guyanese
National Assembly would be proportional to the share each party
received of the national vote. Since the PPP had secured only
42.6% of the national vote in 1961, it was expected that under
proportional representation the PPP would not achieve an outright
majority and thus could control the legislature only by making a
coalition with some other party. The Colonial Secretary's
decision in this regard apparently followed pressure from the
Kennedy administration, which wanted to avoid the installation of
a Marxist PPP government in Guyana.
The 1964 election produced the desired result. Although the
PPP increased its share of the total vote from a 42.6% plurality
in 1961 to 45.8% in 1964, the new government was formed by a
majority coalition of the PNC and the United Force ("UF"). The
government supported by this coalition was in power upon
independence in 1966, and the PNC has steadfastly increased its
power ever since.
9
The Path to Control: 1967 and 1968 Legislative Changes
Before the 1968 national election, the PNC-dominated
government made a number of fundamental changes in the electoral
system, bringing the electoral machinery tightly within its
control and reversing the open and free process which had
prevailed until then. These changes are detailed in Political
Freedom in Guyana, the 1985 report by Americas Watch and the
BPHRG, and will only be summarized here. First, and most
important, the entire electoral machinery -- from voter
registration through polling and counting -- was removed from the
direction and control of the previously independent Elections
Commission. In 1967, the National Assembly had passed the
National Registration Act, ostensibly to establish a national
system of registration and identity cards. A subtle but
significant change followed the next year: instead of basing the
voter rolls on a registration process conducted by the Elections
Commission, the new elections statute -- the Representation of
the People Act -- provided that the voter rolls would be
"extracted" from the national registration list. Since that list
was created by the government, under the supervision of the
Commissioner of Registration, the Elections Commission
effectively lost control of the registration process.
Moreover, the Commissioner of Registration became directly
responsible, subject to the general direction and authority of
the Minister of Home Affairs, for all aspects of elections, from
10
the extraction of voter lists through the operation of polling
places and the counting of ballots. His title became Commissioner
of Registration and Chief Elections Officer. The role of the
Elections Commission was reduced to "oversight," and its listless
performance of that function ever since caused it to be aptly
characterized by Lord Avebury in 1980 as "the toothless poodle of
the PNC."
Several significant changes were also made in the electoral
law itself. Two new methods of voting were authorized: (1) postal
voting "if it is likely to be impracticable or seriously
inconvenient by reason of the general nature of [the voter's]
occupation, service or employment, or for other good cause, for
[the voter] to go in person to the polling place," and (2)
overseas voting, in which Guyanese living abroad could vote
through ballots ostensibly obtained from Guyanese officials in
foreign countries. These new voting methods were obviously ripe
for subversion by those in control of the election machinery and
ultimately proved to be so transparently abused that they were
abolished in 1985. By that time, however, the PNC had firmly
established its position in power.
The government also enacted the National Assembly (Validity
of Elections) Act which, together with later restrictive
interpretations by the Guyanese courts (see below), made legal
challenges to the result of any election virtually impossible. In
particular, the result of an election cannot be challenged unless
11
the High Court is "satisfied . . . beyond a reasonable doubt"
that the practice or act challenged would have changed the result
of the election so drastically that either the order of the
parties under proportional representation or more than half the
seats in the National Assembly would change. Needless to say,
there has never been a successful judicial challenge to an
election since this stringent standard was introduced.
The 1968 Election
These changes were in place for the 1968 national election,
and the results were striking. For the first time, the PNC was
able to achieve a clear majority in the National Assembly -- 30
of the 53 seats -- making a coalition with the UF no longer
necessary. A pattern of fraud was also established. The
government succeeded in registering tremendous growth in the
number of enrolled voters, out of proportion to population
growth. This inflated list made overseas, postal and proxy*
votes
possible in significant, albeit highly questionable, numbers. For
example, when two British groups investigated the lists of
Guyanese voters supposedly living in the United Kingdom, they
found that somewhere between 50 and 75% of these supposed voters
*
Under the original version of the Representation of the People
Act, many classes of persons, including those "unlikely by reason
of...physical infirmity to travel to the polling places," could
have a "proxy" -- another voter registered at the same polling
place -- vote for them, upon presentation of a signed form.
12
did not exist. The overseas votes went overwhelmingly to the PNC.
There were also reports of irregularities at the polls themselves
and in the condition of the ballot boxes as ultimately counted.
Such reports continued through the last election in 1985.
The 1973 Election
Having won an absolute majority in the National Assembly in
1968, the PNC openly sought in the 1973 election to achieve a
two-thirds "super" majority, permitting the party more freely to
amend the Constitution. Not surprisingly, that result was
achieved in the published results. Again, postal and overseas
voting were used, although the government had been forced to
admit that there had been "some irregularities in the compilation
of the overseas register."
Before the election, the government also announced that all
ballots would be counted at three buildings in Thomas Lands,
where the army headquarters is located. When the opposition
vigorously protested this move, the government had a pretext for
predicting possible violence on election day and was thus able to
mobilize the military, ostensibly to protect the ballots. This
ploy, too, was used in later elections.
Furthermore, despite the government's promise that
opposition polling agents would be permitted to accompany the
ballot boxes to the place where they would be counted, that
supposed instruction was either not communicated, misunderstood
13
or disobeyed by the army, resulting in several violent
confrontations in which people were killed and injured. The
violence reinforced the government's predictions and provides a
precedent that has since been cited frequently for tight military
and police control over the electoral process.
The 1973 count was delayed for a substantial period of time
after the polls closed. When the ballots were finally counted,
there were many reports of tampering, broken ballot-box seals,
altered ballots and the like. The result was hardly surprising:
the PNC announced a landslide, claiming to have captured 37 out
of 53 seats, just enough for the predicted two-thirds majority.
The result was so one-sided and inconsistent with national
expectations that the opposition parties announced they would
boycott the National Assembly.
The 1978 Referendum and Amendment of the Constitution
With a two-thirds majority in hand, the government was able
to pass a bill authorizing a referendum to do away with the
article of the Constitution that permitted amendments to the
basic, "entrenched" provisions of the Constitution only upon
approval by a national referendum. The effort became known as
"The Referendum To Abolish Referenda." Opposition groups, both
political and civic in nature, united against the referendum.
They demanded a number of basic electoral reforms to combat the
abuses of the prior two elections. When the government refused to
14
respond to these demands, the opposition called a highly
effective boycott of the referendum.
This boycott provided significant information on the actual
political situation in Guyana. Opposition monitoring efforts were
carried out in 13 of the then-38 electoral districts, principally
in urban areas that were traditional PNC strongholds. The
monitors reported a turn-out of approximately 14%, as opposed to
the "official" figure of 71.5%. This low turn-out allowed the
monitors to identify many examples of multiple and "recycled"
voting by PNC supporters. Again, postal, proxy and overseas
voting produced effective results for the PNC. The government
claimed a 97.7% vote in favor of the proposal to abolish
constitutional referenda.
With this "mandate," a new Constitution was drafted,
identical to the version proposed by the PNC. Although the
National Assembly was retained, ultimate authority was vested in
a President, who is the leader of the party with the most seats
in the Assembly.
The 1980 Election
An election was held under the new Constitution in December
1980. Concern with past practices led the Guyana Human Rights
Association to request the presence of international observers.
Although President Burnham announced that "anyone who wants to
observe the elections may do so," a request for accreditation by
15
Lord Avebury, chairman of a team proposed by the BPHRG, was
rejected by the government. Nevertheless, a team of 11 observers
from the United Kingdom, Canada, the Caribbean and the United
States came to observe the elections, without governmental
support. At the end of the voting, they announced an immediate
and succinct conclusion: "we [are] obliged to conclude, on the
basis of abundant and clear evidence, that the election was
rigged massively and flagrantly. . . ."
The BPHRG report detailed the manifold deficiencies of the
electoral laws and machinery, limitations on political assembly
and activity, and actual abuses and illegal activity on election
day. The observers reported intimidation of voters and outright
denial of access to the polls; deletion of names from voter
lists; abuse of postal and proxy voting; double registration;
late arrival of ballot boxes; irregularities in voting hours;
intimidation by military presence; and massive "recycling" of
voters, apparently with the support and assistance of the police.
Following the closing of the polls, the observers reported the
forcible expulsion of opposition polling agents from the place
where the ballots were to be counted, as well as a delay of at
least 15 hours in announcing the first returns. Preceding the
election, the observers also reported serious "anomalies" in the
preliminary voter lists, including addresses that did not exist,
substantial numbers of voters no longer living at the addresses
indicated, and double entries of names.
16
The 1985 Election
The Guyanese Constitution provides that Parliament may not
sit for more than five years, at which time it must be dissolved
and an election held within three months. Accordingly, a national
election was held in December 1985. Although the Americas
Watch/BPHRG team sent to examine electoral conditions was not
allowed into Guyana, it interviewed a number of individuals in
advance of the elections and issued a report recommending
fundamental changes to the Guyanese electoral system. Most of
these changes were not implemented. The government did make
several important changes, however. Most significantly, the
facially abusive device of postal voting was abolished
altogether, and non-resident voting was restricted to government
employees living abroad and bona-fide students studying abroad.
But the many other obstacles to free and fair elections were not
removed.
No international observers were present on election day. One
international journalist, Anthony Jenkins of the United Kingdom,
was beaten by a mob when he accompanied Dr. Cheddi Jagan on a
visit to a rural polling place to investigate an irregularity. In
1990, the government told Americas Watch that this was Mr.
Jenkins's fault, on the grounds that he had violated Guyanese law
requiring all non-accredited persons to remain at least 200 yards
from polling places. Jenkins, by his own account, did not enter
17
the polling place and was assaulted outside.
Despite the lack of international observer presence,
Guyanese domestic monitoring groups documented massive electoral
fraud. The day following the election, an amalgamation of civic
leaders, including the Anglican and Catholic Bishops of Guyana,
reported that the election had been characterized by "widespread
disenfranchisement, multiple voting, ejection of polling agents,
threats, intimidation, violence and collusion by police and army
personnel." These leaders further noted that the government had
only then started to announce the results, more than 24 hours
after the polls had closed.
A systematic effort was also made to catalogue the specific
abuses on and after election day, with numerous affidavits and
statements from opposition polling agents and others. Americas
Watch was allowed to review these reports, which are detailed and
numerous. They present the following abuses:
- Voting by persons posing as someone else/multiple voting
by the same person.
- Partiality by polling officials to PNC supporters.
- Opposition polling agents refused or delayed access to
polls.
- Opposition polling agents evicted from polls by force.
- Voters wrongfully turned away from polls, ostensibly on
these grounds:
- Wrong identification card number.
- They had "already voted."
- Their names could not be found on the list.
- Polling agents illegally advised PNC activists of the
names of voters who had not yet voted.
- Ballots were marked outside polling places, including at
PNC offices.
- Police failed to prevent or correct violations of law.
- Polling agents not allowed to have voter lists or to take
or keep notes.
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- PNC supporters who were not accredited allowed in and
out of polling places.
- Fingers of PNC supporters not dipped in "electoral" ink
to show voting.
- Fingers of PNC supporters washed after being dipped in
ink.
- Opposition challenges to improper voters disallowed by
Presiding Officers at polling places.
- Ballot boxes taken away by Guyanese Defense Force
soldiers or PNC supporters in violation of law.
- Refusal to allow opposition polling agents to accompany
ballot boxes to place for counting.
- Ballots not counted until as late as 46-1/2 hours after
the polls closed.
Not surprisingly, the PNC once again announced a massive
landslide victory: 77.5% PNC, 15.5% PPP, 3.2% UF and a total of
2.5% for all other parties combined. These figures gave the PNC
42 seats in the National Assembly, while all other parties
combined had only 11. Furthermore, since membership on the
Elections Commission is restricted to parties with at least five
seats in the National Assembly, only the PNC and PPP remained
entitled to seats on the Commission.
These one-sided results were widely rejected as absurd. For
example, an active and aggressive young party, the Democratic
Labour Movement ("DLM"), reported during the 1985 electoral
campaign that it had increased its dues-paying membership from
14,207 to 20,029. Yet, the government announced that the DLM had
received only 2,157 votes. The result was more consistent with
the government's announced opinion that the DLM was a "minor
grouping, perhaps best described as a marginal or fringe entity,"
than with any reasonable or objective report of the DLM's
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strength.
The government's response to the widespread charges of
electoral fraud was to publish two glossy booklets, obviously
targeted for foreign consumption, showing that the election had
been "free and fair." These propaganda booklets were rushed into
print so that President Hoyte could hand them out to West Indian
leaders attending a meeting on the island of Mustique, but they
were never circulated in Guyana itself. They attribute virtually
all criticism of Guyanese electoral practices to "sour grapes" by
the PPP's Dr. Cheddi Jagan, totally ignoring the criticisms of
groups such as the BPHRG and Americas Watch as well as of the
Anglican and Catholic Bishops. Picking and choosing among
available facts, they attribute the PNC's victory to a
combination of opposition incompetence and PNC brilliance.
Electoral Problems Today
Although the abuses of overseas and postal voting were
abolished in 1985, other government actions continue to
compromise the prospects of a free and fair election, including
an electoral system that remains an open invitation to fraud by
the ruling party.
1. Freedom of expression and association during the
campaign. As an initial matter, the ability to campaign freely
and effectively is an integral part of a free and fair election.
20
On this score, while the situation in Guyana has improved
somewhat since 1985, serious problems remain.
Political opposition is strong and vocal in Guyana, a
remarkable phenomenon in a country in which power has been
withheld from opposition parties for a quarter century. Parties
appear relatively free to have meetings and rallies, although
there are a few reports of private meetings having been disrupted
by police in remote locations. In August, Americas Watch
witnessed a large rally by a civic reform movement, GUARD, in a
central Georgetown park attended by approximately 10,000 persons
who listened intently to many speakers critical of the govern-
ment, whose words were conveyed by highly effective amplifiers.
However, government actions continue to limit the
opposition's opportunity to campaign. A GUARD march in September,
for example, was violently assaulted by PNC thugs. A religions
sister leading the march was personally assaulted, her car
windows smashed, and equipment stolen.
Problems also arise when groups seek to congregate in
crowded areas, such as marketplaces, particularly during business
hours when the public is present. Requests for permits for such
gatherings are routinely denied on what appears to be a political
basis, as are requests for marches that would take rallies past
markets and other areas where large numbers of people naturally
congregate. These denials are serious in a country in which face-
to-face encounters are still the most effective means of
21
political communication.
The situation with respect to newspapers has improved
greatly in recent years. The last Americas Watch report, from
1985, found that the government controlled the only daily
newspaper and that the opposition press was allowed to exist but
was "only barely tolerated." Today, a new newspaper, the Stabroek
News, is published three days a week, offering independent and
wide-ranging viewpoints on political and other issues. The
traditional opposition newspapers, The Catholic Standard and The
Mirror (published by the PPP), continue to publish weekly and are
strenuous in their criticism of the government. The government's
paper, The Chronicle, reflects the government's perspective and
is openly hostile to opposing parties and points of view.
There are, however, serious limitations on access to the
other media. Radio is controlled by the government and, according
to the Executive Chairman of the Guyana Public Communications
Agency, air time will be allocated to the various parties by the
National Assembly only when the election has been announced. Even
then, it is expected that there will be severe limitations on
opposition broadcasts, as there were in 1985, when the PNC
dominated the airwaves.
Guyanese television is new and somewhat unique. There are
two "licensed" stations, although the government has set no
technical or content standards. Basically, the local operators
("Rex" and "Vera") rebroadcast their own personal selections of
22
transmissions picked up from North American satellites. The
government operates "GTV," a news and information service, which
broadcasts a news report ten minutes each day during a portion of
certain segments of North American nightly news broadcasts
(usually CNN) picked up and retransmitted by the local operators.
GTV gets relatively high marks for objectivity and balance, but
it does not reach a high proportion of the population. GTV has
begun and intends to continue a series of "Face the Nation"-type
broadcasts, featuring a wide variety of political spokespersons,
approximately biweekly.
Because of the shortcomings of television and radio, as well
as the limited circulation of newspapers, direct meetings,
rallies and marches continue to constitute the most effective
means of political communication in Guyana. By restricting
rallies and marches to prevent them from reaching large numbers
of persons, the government has seriously interfered with freedom
of political expression.
2. Creation and correction of voter lists. Before a single
vote is cast, government-imposed obstacles on the system used to
correct voter lists ensures that these lists contain large
numbers of names of people who, because of emigration or death,
are no longer eligible voters. Because the PNC appears to have
exclusive advance access to these lists, they can use the
inaccuracies to facilitate fraudulent voting practices.
The creation of the national list of electors (voters) takes
23
place with no participation or input by opposition parties or
independent groups. The task has been delegated to the staff of
the National Registration Center, augmented by other public
servants as needed. This agency conducts its work in a building
surrounded by a high fence and barbed wire; its windows have been
painted over. The staff, while ostensibly public servants with no
specific party loyalty, owe their positions to the PNC and are
subject to all the subtle and not-so-subtle intimidation that
grows out of 26 years of PNC rule.
In addition, the process by which the list is generated is
seriously flawed -- flaws which, as noted, lay the groundwork for
electoral fraud. The voter list is extracted from the national
registration list, which is derived in the first instance from a
house-to-house census of Guyanese citizens aged 14 and above. The
census is performed only periodically, however. Thereafter, it is
the responsibility of the Commissioner of Registration to keep
the list as current and accurate as possible.
The Commissioner of Registration, R. Andrew Jacobs, admitted
that this is virtually an impossible task. In the first place,
massive numbers of Guyanese emigrate each month -- as many as
1,000 to the United States alone. There is no accurate way to
track this emigration. Even though the Central Police Office has
been asked to collect emigration information at the airports and
other points of departure, Guyanese citizens are understandably
reluctant to report their intentions to the police. Therefore,
24
the electoral rolls are swelled by the names of thousands upon
thousands of "voters" who have in fact permanently left the
country.
Furthermore, the process depends on a cumbersome cross-
referencing of deaths as reported to the Commissioner of
Registration by the Registrar General of Births and Deaths. Even
if well intentioned, the process creates further opportunities
for error and omission.
The cumulative effect of these systemic problems is quite
striking. In 1980, for example, according to a report read to
Americas Watch by the Commissioner of Registration and Chief
Elections Officer, "undetected errors during the conversion phase
[from 38 electoral districts to 10] resulted in the deletion of
112,000 names" from the lists of electors. In a country in which
there are certainly no more than 400,000 electors, the sudden
deletion of 112,000 is no small matter. Americas Watch was not
allowed to see any of the reports referred to by the Commissioner
during the interview, and they are not publicly available. Thus,
the registration and election process, which should be open, is
clothed in great -- and wholly unnecessary -- secrecy.
According to the Commissioner of Registration and Chief
Elections Officer, the list was reestablished in 1985 through a
national house-to-house census. However, no one other than
governmental officials was allowed to participate in or observe
that process. Furthermore, five years have passed since the 1985
25
census, during which time there has been significant and
continuing degeneration of the list, for the reasons discussed
above. Recently, the PPP did a random survey to determine the
accuracy of the lists posted early in 1990 as part of the
national registration process. The party selected 11 registration
divisions in three of the country's ten districts. The results
showed the lists to be approximately 20% inaccurate, combining
the erroneous listing of the names of persons who had died,
emigrated or were listed twice, with the erroneous deletion of
persons who actually resided in the divisions and were otherwise
eligible to vote.
Massive inaccuracy in the electoral lists is, of course, an
open invitation to electoral fraud. If lists are available to PNC
operatives well in advance of the election -- as they seem always
to have been, in contrast to the other parties -- then the party
is able to ascertain the names of "electors" who in fact will not
be voting and assign those names to other persons who will vote
in their place, with the assistance of cooperative Presiding
Officers at the polling places.
Guyanese electoral law does contain a set of procedures for
correcting the lists, but these procedures are extremely complex
and, in practice, virtually impossible to follow. It is thus not
at all surprising that the Commissioner of Registration and Chief
Election Officer admitted that there had been few "claims" and
"objections" in the past.
26
The correction process starts with a direction from the
Minister of Home Affairs to begin the extraction process.
Preliminary lists of electors must be posted within two days
after that direction is given.*
The applicable statute provides
that two copies of the list for each registration/election
division shall be posted on a building within that division.
Since most of the 750 divisions contain persons eligible to
vote,**
there will be something approaching 750 different lists
posted throughout the country. There is no provision for the
lists to be given out on a national basis, and nothing requires
that these obviously crucial documents be given to the opposition
political parties or to anyone else interested in determining the
validity of the lists or seeking to correct them. Members of the
government have said in the past that the lists have been made
available to the parties and will be made available in the
future. That promise was made again to Americas Watch. But
representatives of the parties deny that they have been given the
lists in advance of past elections, stating unequivocally that in
*
Even though the process is computerized, it is difficult to
believe that the extraction and posting process can be completed
in two days. Therefore, the Commissioner of Registration and
Chief Election Officer must be aware of the relevant dates much
earlier, meaning that the entire PNC party apparatus has a sig-
nificant planning advantage over all opposition parties.
**
The Commissioner of Registration and Chief Elections Officer
told Americas Watch that while the country is divided into 750
divisions for the purpose of registration and voting, some of
these divisions, particularly in the more rural parts of the
country, have no one registered.
27
1985 they did not receive any lists of electors until the eve, or
in one case, early in the morning, of election day.
Without their own copies of the electoral lists, the parties
and anyone else wishing to test the validity of the lists are
left to cope with a process that is designed to make review, let
alone challenges, virtually impossible. Although the voter lists
are required to be posted at published locations, only two copies
are posted, many with hundreds of names, and these are frequently
torn down almost immediately. Even if the lists remain "posted,"
they are often in fact controlled by the 750 divisional
registrars, who have been reported to take a restrictive view of
who can examine them and for what purpose. Furthermore, on
occasion, many people seek to examine the lists, creating long
lines. And, of course, this examination process must be repeated
approximately 750 times, in 750 locations, by anyone who wishes
to acquire a complete national list.
Once the list has been posted, the administrative correction
process begins. The process consists of the making of "claims" --
requests by individuals to be included on a particular list or to
have some piece of information about them (name, address,
identification number or employment) corrected -- and
"objections" -- requests that improper entries be removed. The
applicable statute does not specify the procedure for claims and
objections, stating only that they "shall be made in the
28
prescribed manner."*
The method prescribed by the government's
regulations seems designed to produce the result which has
typically occurred: almost no one makes claims or objections.
Objections are the most critical part of the process, since
they provide the only mechanism for removing the large number of
electors -- potential "phantom" voters -- who should no longer be
on the lists. Objections must be filed within 14 days of the
posting of the lists, in the particular divisions in which the
challenged registrants live, by persons resident in that
division. This creates an obvious administrative nightmare: the
parties and anyone else wishing to guarantee the quality of the
electoral rolls, working with 750 separate lists of which they do
not have copies and which they may not even be able to inspect,
must assemble the lists, canvass the entire country, find all the
mistakes, prepare objections, and arrange for these to be filed
by persons living in each of the 750 divisions, all within 14
days. It cannot be done.
Furthermore, each of the objections must be accompanied by a
"deposit" of $5.00 (Guyanese). Although the deposit will most
likely be refunded if the objection is sustained, the potential
upfront cost of mounting an objection campaign to correct the
approximately 100,000 errors in the national list estimated by
opposition figures interviewed by Americas Watch would be on the
*
National Registration Act ' 15(2).
29
order of $500,000 (Guyanese), a tremendous burden in a country
where the per capita income now competes with Haiti for last
place in the Western Hemisphere.
In sum, the process by which the voter lists are generated
and corrected is seriously flawed. Managed by a government
bureaucracy beholden to the ruling party and operating behind
barbed wire and painted windows, full of administratively
impossible deadlines and limitations, the current process, if run
as it has been in the past, cannot possibly generate an accurate
list of eligible voters, paving the way for fraud on election
day.
3. Election day: Operation of the polls. On election day,
the polling places are in the absolute control of the Presiding
Officers ("POs"), normally members of the Public Service
appointed by the government. Again, the obvious problem of
partisanship infects the administration of the polling places.
Indeed, no one from any of the opposition parties could remember
a single instance of one of their supporters being appointed a
PO, nor could any member of the government or the PNC point to
such an instance.
The PO controls the polling place. Most critically, it is
the PO who decides whether a person is eligible to vote, normally
by checking the person's identity card against the list of
electors. Although the PO has the right to refuse to issue a
ballot to anyone who does not present an identity card, the PO
30
may also "dispense" with that requirement if the PO is "satisfied
as to the identity" of the elector.*
The enormous and total discretion given to the PO, coupled
with the lack of any procedure to ensure that the PO is
independent, has been the source of serious abuse. The various
types of abuses that were catalogued on election day in 1985 were
discussed above. Most if not all of those abuses would not have
occurred if the PO had operated the polling place honestly and
openly, without bias or favoritism, and in full compliance with
the established laws.
Indeed, many of the abuses documented involve outright
violations of law by the PO. For example, it is a violation of
Section 77(1) of the Representation of the People Act for anyone
"attending the polling place" to communicate to anyone before the
poll is closed "the name of any elector who has or has not
applied for a ballot paper." Nevertheless, POs were observed in
1985 making lists of people who had not voted and passing those
lists to PNC operatives, for the obvious purpose of getting those
people to "vote," in one way or another.
The only possible official check on abuse of authority by
POs is the supposedly countervailing authority of the police
officers stationed by law at each poll. However, since the police
are no more independent from the PNC than the POs, they uniformly
*
Representation of the People Act '' 70, 75.
31
refuse to exercise any independent authority.
The law permits, at least on its face, the presence of
observers at the polls, both the agents of political parties
("polling agents")*
as well as "any team of observers" appointed
by the Home Minister.**
To date, however, there have never been
any independent observers.*
That has left the opposition-party
polling agents unprotected from the POs' unfettered discretion
under the Representation of the People Act to order the police to
remove from the polling place anyone who does not obey any
"lawful" direction or order of the PO. (Such a person is then
barred from the polling place for the rest of the day.) There
have been many reports in the past of such forcible expulsions of
legitimate party polling agents, witness to the effective absence
of any safeguards against election-day abuses by POs.
4. Counting the ballots. In the past 26 years, and despite
the critical need to ensure that the ballot boxes were not
tampered with, Americas Watch is unaware of any instance in which
an independent observer or opposition agent has been able to ob-
*
Representation of the People Act '24.
**
Representation of the People Act '79(1)(b)(i). Americas Watch
is unaware of any "team of observers" ever being accredited by
the Minister of Home Affairs. Indeed, the government was
apparently unaware of this statute, thinking it necessary to pass
a new statute earlier this year to empower the President to
invite observers.
*
The international team in 1980 was not accredited by the
government and thus was not permitted within 200 yards of polling
stations.
32
serve a ballot box from the time the poll closed until the time
the box was opened and the ballots counted. The obstacles placed
in the path of anyone wishing to attempt such a task are
overwhelming. When the polls close, the boxes are ostensibly
sealed for transportation to a central location in each of the
ten national election districts. The Representation of the People
Act ('83(c)) states that the PO shall, in the presence of those
who are authorized to be present at the polling place, "deliver
the sealed ballot box . . . to the returning officer of the
district." In practice, however, the boxes are turned over for
transportation to the military, ostensibly to protect the box.
The Elections Commission did issue directions in 1980 and again
in 1985 that
the Presiding Officer shall permit a polling agent of a
political party contesting the elections to accompany
the ballot box or boxes from the polling place to the
counting centre, provided that in his opinion there is
no security risk and he is able to provide suitable
accommodation in the vehicle conveying the ballot box
or boxes to the counting centre.
This instruction was either misunderstood, disregarded or not
communicated in most instances, and few, if any, polling agents
were able to accompany the ballot boxes even on this first leg of
their journey.
But the ordeal does not end there. Even after the boxes
arrive at the counting center, they are routinely locked away,
out of view, and the opposition agents are told to go home and
come back for the counting, which sometimes does not start until
33
almost two days after the polls have closed. Even if one were
allowed to remain with the box, it is the rare observer who would
be able to stay awake for as many as 60 consecutive hours to
ensure the security of the box.
There is a firm conviction throughout Guyana that massive
fraud takes place during the period between the closing of the
polls and the counting of the ballots. There are reports of boxes
being destroyed or thrown away and replaced; of ballots thrown
from helicopters and found in garbage dumps; of ballots being
removed from boxes wrapped in rubber bands, although they were
supposedly deposited into the box one-by-one by the voters. So
widespread and firm is the national suspicion of the entire
counting process that it is fair to say that no Guyanese election
can be perceived as free and fair unless an open and honest
alternative to the process of transportation and delayed counting
is used.
There is one further problem inherent in the counting
process. It has been the Guyanese tradition, for at least the
last 26 years, to take all the ballots for a district (there are
now only ten in the country) and mix them together, making it
impossible to discern the particular results from any of the 807
polling places throughout the country. While the government
defends this practice as necessary to the protection of ethnic
minorities in certain divisions (a claim refuted in detail
below), it is in fact a process tailor-made for disguising fraud,
34
since it makes it impossible to check results against any
meaningful yardstick.
5. Voting by disciplined services. Before the 1985 election,
the government established a new procedure permitting the
"disciplined services" (military, police and others, as
designated by the Minister of Home Affairs) to vote separately
and in advance of election day. This procedure created a
substantial opportunity for further abuse. Lists were impossible
to check, either for accuracy or for duplication of the general
voter lists. Opposition and independent polling agents had
difficulty attending the special polling places and, as a result,
only the PNC was represented. There were reports of multiple
voting, both on the special election day and again on the general
election day. There were also reports that the disciplined forces
were instructed how to vote, as part of their responsibilities to
support the government, i.e., the PNC.
6. Impossibility of legal challenges. A combination of court
decisions and the legal standards established by the
Representation of the People Act have made legal challenges to
Guyanese elections all but impossible. Members of the opposition
first attempted a broad-based challenge to the Guyanese electoral
process before the 1968 election, specifically targeting the
constitutionality of the Representation of the People Act. The
petitioners argued that the Act effectively negated the Election
Commission's constitutional mandate to conduct elections,
35
including the independent preparation of voter lists. They sought
an injunction against the election.
The injunction was denied. The presiding judge -- Sir Harold
Bollers, now Chairman of the Elections Commission -- rejected the
constitutional arguments, affirming the presupposition of the
election statute that any challenge to an election should wait
until the election is completed. Of course, at that point, under
the statute, the petitioner to prevail would have to establish,
beyond a reasonable doubt, that the entire result of the election
would have changed.*
Today, there is no part of the conduct of an
election that can be subject to independent judicial review,
except by these excessively demanding standards.
7. Lack of an independent Elections Commission. The lack of
an independent and credible Elections Commission underlies many
of the electoral deficiencies described in this report. A more
neutral, broad-based body could on its own take steps to rectify
these problems.
As detailed above, the Elections Commission was established
by the Constitution to "exercise general direction and
supervision over the registration of voters and the
administrative conduct of all elections of members of the
*
The National Assembly (Validity of Elections) Act '' 28-30;
Gladys Petrie and Others v. The Attorney General and Others,
(1968) 14 W.I.R. 292. Sir Harold confirmed these principles in
the later case of Seecomar Singh and Another v. R.C. Butler,
(1973) 21 W.I.R. 34, in which members of the opposition had at-
tempted to challenge the 1973 election.
36
national assembly" and to "take such action as appear to it
necessary to ensure impartiality, fairness and compliance" in
elections. While ostensibly an independent body, the Commission
has abdicated its authority entirely to the government, through
the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Commissioner of Registration
and Chief Elections Officer.
This abdication of responsibility is due in part to the
Commission's Chairman, Sir Harold Bollers, a presidential
appointee. Sir Harold is, as the Constitution requires, a former
judge; indeed, he served as Chief Justice of Guyana until 1980,
when he reached the age of 65. Sir Harold does not, however,
display the independence demanded by such a position. More than
any other individual interviewed by Americas Watch, he vehemently
insisted on the propriety of everything that had ever been done
with respect to Guyanese elections, characterizing as "liars"
anyone who would attempt to maintain a position to the contrary.
Sir Harold was not even interested in appearing to be independent
and impartial.
Sir Harold, however, is only part of the Commission's
credibility problem among broad segments of Guyanese society. In
addition, because membership is currently limited to
representatives of parties with five or more seats in the
National Assembly, the Commission is composed of only the PNC and
PPP representatives, plus the Chairman. In the view of many of
those interviewed by Americas Watch, a broader membership, more
37
reflective of Guyana's diverse society, is crucial to creating
and maintaining national confidence in the freedom and openness
of Guyanese elections.
Changes Necessary to the
Conduct of a Free and Fair Election
Free and fair elections cannot take place under the current
system in Guyana. Americas Watch believes that changes must take
place in several basic areas, none of which would require any
constitutional or statutory amendments. Indeed, several of them
require nothing more than the fulfillment of the government's
promises -- made to Americas Watch and others -- to administer
the election process fairly.
1. A preliminary count at the polls. No single change is as
important or will have as positive an effect as adopting a
procedure that will allow observers and polling agents to monitor
the ballots from the time they are cast until the moment they are
counted. Given the history of abuse of other methods purportedly
designed to serve this purpose, the method universally endorsed
by those advocating electoral reform in Guyana is to conduct a
preliminary count of the ballots at each polling place. By this
step, the electoral process would be opened and clarified, in a
simple, honest and direct way, for all to see. There is no
provision of Guyanese law that would prohibit such a step. The
Representation of the People Act requires that, "as soon as
38
practicable after the closing of the poll," the PO shall secure
and seal the ballot box and deliver it to the returning officer
of the district ('83). There is nothing to prohibit the PO, after
the polling place is closed and before the box is sealed, in the
presence of the handful of persons permitted by law to be present
in the polling place, to remove the ballots from the box, count
them with everyone watching, announce the results, and return the
ballots to the box before sealing it.*
The government strenuously opposes this change, offering a
wide range of logistical, theoretical, historical, political,
sociological and other justifications for the current practice.
In fact, none of the government's proffered justifications
withstand scrutiny.
a. Logistical/administrative problems. The government
contends that counting the ballots at the polling place would be
"impracticable" and "a painstaking manual exercise."*
In fact,
nothing could be farther from the truth. The Guyanese national
ballots are the simplest imaginable and extremely easy to count.
*
If there is any doubt about the authority of the Presiding
Officer to perform a preliminary count, the government, with an
overwhelming majority in the National Assembly and with all the
opposing parties calling for a preliminary count at the polls,
could easily amend the law.
*
Notwithstanding the fact that this position was still being
argued to Americas Watch in August 1990, President Hoyte was
quoted in the Stabroek News of September 30, 1989 as saying that
there was "no good logistical reason" for not counting votes at
the polls and that the actual justification was "political and
sociological."
39
Each voter votes once, for a party, by placing an "X" next to the
name of the party. Even if there were 500 such ballots in a given
box, it could take no more than 20 to 30 minutes to count them
all. That is hardly a burden in the context of a counting process
that has been known to take up to two days.**
b. Historical justification. The government argues that
votes have not been counted at the polls for decades, citing a
1953 statement by one H.R. Harewood, then the Crown's
Registration Officer, that "it was not found practicable to make
arrangements for a preliminary count at each polling place." The
statement is meaningless, saying nothing about why the count
would be "impracticable" today. The government also points to the
traditions of Barbados, Antigua and Belize, where votes are
apparently not counted at polling places. Of course, there are
many counter examples of Caribbean countries where ballots are
counted at polling places. More to the point, none of the
countries cited by the government is attempting to overcome a
history of 26 years of rigged elections.*
**
There is a certain amount of government disinformation being
spread on this issue. A government position paper given to
Americas Watch speaks of the difficulty of separating the "Na-
tional" from the "Presidential" ballots before they can be count-
ed. In fact, there is no separate election for President: the
President is designated by the party winning the most seats in
the National Assembly.
*
The government often falls back on a variant of this his-
torical/political argument: changes are to be resisted if they
are suggested by "strangers" unfamiliar with Guyanese conditions.
For example, the Chronicle reported on February 23, 1990 that
President Hoyte "exhorted" the nation: "We must resist vigorously
40
c. The threat of racial violence. This is the government's
last resort. Citing episodes of violence in the 1973 elections
and racial riots in the 1960s, the government raises the specter
of recurrent violence if ballots are counted preliminarily at
polling places. An official government paper states:
In small polling places with a concentration of
ethnically identifiable population there is the added
danger of the secrecy of the ballot being exposed
through obvious trends in voting patterns and small
communities being consequently threatened by political
parties committed to racial voting tendencies.
Thus, the argument runs, if the residents of a given community
expect a unanimous vote in favor of the PPP, for example, and
then learn that someone has voted for the PNC, that person will
be subject to violence. The counter to the government is obvious:
how will the community know who voted for the PNC? The government
answer is, "Because a certain person is a known PNC supporter."
Why, then, wouldn't a community inclined toward violence prevent
that person from going to the poll in the first place? And if no
any attempt by strangers to manipulate our domestic transactions
and arrangements and we must oppose implacably anyone who seeks
to encourage intervention." Thus, when Juan Andrade of the Mid-
west/Northeast Voter Registration Project in Chicago came to Guy-
ana in June and offered the opinion that there was no practical
reason why votes could not be counted at polling places, Presi-
dent Hoyte later called him "an officious" and "ignorant person"
and added:
I do not know who he is and I do not know by what right
he comes to Guyana to tell us how to organize our
political affairs. . . . Even if he were an expert in
the US or in Mexico, that does not make him an expert
in Guyana -- so I reject all these people. (Stabroek
News, August 7, 1990.)
41
one in the community can be identified as a PNC supporter, how
will the community know whom to attack?
The government has also pointed to historic racial tensions
in certain villages along the coastal road east of Georgetown. In
the 1960s, racial rioting in those villages caused a racial
realignment to take place over the next few years. Today, the
villages are more ethnically separate, alternating between Afro-
Guyanese and Indo-Guyanese in a pattern easily discerned as one
drives along the road. The government suggests that violence will
reoccur in and between those villages if ballots are counted at
the polling places.
To test this hypothesis, which no one other than the
government would credit or defend, Americas Watch visited two
Afro-Guyanese villages and two Indo-Guyanese villages in the area
and spoke with a number of local citizens. The results were
unequivocal and positive: although the residents candidly
remembered the problems of the 1960s, they universally reported
that those problems were behind them. And no one thought there
was any possibility that there would be violence in their
communities if ballots were counted at the local polling
stations. Indeed, it was commented more than once that, given the
history of rigged elections, there was more likely to be violence
if the ballots were not counted at the local polling stations.
This local perspective is consistent with the national
viewpoint. No one -- including the Chief of Police -- can point
42
to any proven examples of racial or political violence in recent
years. Nevertheless, the government has worked hard to
characterize certain criminal events as racial and political in
origin, attempting to create a divisive atmosphere that will
support its position that ballots cannot be counted at the
polling place. For example, when Americas Watch was in the
country, the government newspaper, The Chronicle, was full of
reports of supposed racial violence against one Archie Adams, a
supposed PNC supporter who was assaulted on the Essequibo Coast
in July. More objective observers cited Adams's criminal record
and noted his apparent lack of involvement in any political
activity, concluding that this was a simple event of criminal
violence without any political or racial overtones.
Indeed, to the neutral observer it appears that the PNC, and
the PNC alone, is seeking to foster an atmosphere of violence and
discord. A telling example occurred while Americas Watch was in
the country. In Trinidad, a dissident armed band led by Iman
Yasin Abu Bakr had taken over the Parliament, kidnapping the
Prime Minister and a number of political leaders. The PNC
immediately attempted to draw a didactic parallel to Guyana. The
Chronicle of July 29, 1990 carried an article entitled "PNC
deplores coup attempt in TT," which contained the following:
Within recent months, in Guyana, there have been
repeated calls for violence from prominent members of
the People's Progressive Party, the WPA and the
Guyanese Action for Reform and Democracy, as a means of
gaining political power.
43
The people of Guyana have grown accustomed to
conditions of peace and tranquility over the past 25
years under PNC government. In the circumstances, the
PNC calls on the people of Guyana to take note of the
tragic situation that has arisen in a sister Caribbean
country and to be vigilant in maintaining peace and
good order in Guyana.
Every Guyanese has a duty to prevent elements in
our country that are bent on promoting political
violence from achieving their sinister designs to
create conditions of instability and chaos in our
country. The PNC stands ready to join with all right-
minded citizens to ensure that conditions of peace and
due constitutionality are preserved in our country.
Americas Watch asked the government and the PNC to identify the
"prominent members of the People's Progressive Party, the WPA and
the Guyanese Action for Reform and Democracy [GUARD]" who were
calling for violence as a means of gaining political power. No
one was able to do so. In fact, Americas Watch met with
representatives of each of these three groups and found their
goals to be exactly the opposite: the promotion of peaceful
political change through free and fair elections.*
Reports and predictions of violence serve the PNC's goals.
By reminding the public of ancient history,**
by characterizing
neutral events as political events and by generally fomenting
racial disharmony, the PNC is seeking to create an atmosphere
*
It is no coincidence that the PPP, the WPA and GUARD are the
three most important and influential opposition political and
civic organizations.
**
Lately, the Chronicle has taken to rerunning stories from the
early 1960s in which Dr. Jagan and others are reported to talk of
violence and to be themselves accused of tampering with elections
and of promoting racial discord.
44
that will legitimatize its refusal to count ballots at the polls
and permit it to call out the army to "keep the peace." This
strategy should be categorically rejected by all who truly wish
to see free and fair elections in Guyana.
2. Substantial international observer presence. For the
Guyanese electoral process to work, there must be a substantial
international observer presence at all stages to bolster domestic
monitoring efforts. Guyanese elections since 1968 have been
characterized by an enormous gap between promise and performance,
between the law and its observance. The presence of international
observers is an essential supplement to domestic attempts to
close that gap. International observers will make it
significantly more difficult for the government to bar domestic
monitors from meaningful observation of the electoral process.
That, in turn, will require the government either to live up to
its promises and honor the law or to have its failures documented
for all to see.
The international observer presence must be substantial. It
must start with a full monitoring of the process by which the
voter lists are generated and corrected. It must continue with a
presence sufficient to continuously monitor a significant portion
of the 807 polling places on election day. It must conclude with
enough observers to follow the ballot boxes to the place of
official count and to observe that count.
The presence of a single Commonwealth team of observers,
45
invited by the President, is unlikely to achieve these goals.
Because of the historically close ties between the Commonwealth
Secretariat and the PNC (see above), a Commonwealth team could
well lack the necessary credibility, certainly within Guyana if
not abroad. Nor will adding a group led by President Carter help
sufficiently, in light of the small number of observers that as a
practial matter he can lead. Rather, the nation's doors should be
opened wide enough to permit a diverse and substantial
international observer presence, with sufficient variety and
experience to be credible.
Furthermore, the government should abolish at least that
part of the recently enacted international observer statute that
makes it a crime to impersonate an observer. There is no
legitimate purpose to such a statute; its only goal is to
intimidate and harass. Any improper conduct by observers can
certainly be controlled by good sense and the ordinary laws of
Guyana.
3. Free access by the press. In the past, journalists have
not been permitted within 200 yards of polling places. There is
no justification for such a restriction, and it should be
removed. In a recent interview, President Hoyte said that the
press would have open access to the polls, and that promise
should be kept.
4. Free speech and association. Freedom of speech, including
full and equal access to the broadcast media, must also be
46
guaranteed to all Guyanese candidates and parties. Marches and
rallies should not be limited except as absolutely necessary to
protect the public safety; permits should be issued according to
clear, public standards that on their face and as applied do not
discriminate against any political party.
5. Enforcement of the laws in a spirit of openness. The
procedural protections of the National Registration Act and the
Representation of the People Act must be respected and enforced
in the liberal spirit which the government has promised.
Presiding Officers must honor the rights of opposition polling
agents and enforce the electoral laws. The police must enforce
those laws as well, including the statutes that restrict the
activities of the Presiding Officers, prevent electoral fraud and
protect the rights of opposition polling agents and observers.
With respect to the publication and correction of voter
lists, the entire process must be kept simple and open. As a
simple matter of fairness, all parties should be given copies of
the voter lists, for every division in the country, as soon as
they are available to the government and the PNC. Copies should
also be provided to those, such as GUARD, which wish to
participate in the process of correcting the lists. The
government should also make available copies of the official
lists of those who have died since 1985, to facilitate inspection
and correction of the voter lists.*
*
Since the voter lists are ostensibly "extracted" from the
47
The deadlines for objections and claims should be extended
beyond the two-week period currently provided for, as the
government has promised to do in the past. In view of the
tremendous, acknowledged inaccuracy of the lists, the $5.00
deposit for objections should also be waived. A mechanism should
be employed to allow parties to file forms on a national basis,
rather than division-by-division, and the requirement that
objections must be filed by persons residing in the divisions in
which the objections are lodged should be removed altogether.
Care should be taken to see that the lists remain posted for
the entire period in which claims and objections can be filed.
Voters should also be informed clearly and far in advance of the
election of the location of their particular polling places. The
voter lists given to each party should state the precise location
at which each list of voters will actually vote on election day.
The timetable for claims and objections should be announced in
advance and widely publicized, not just in The Gazette but also
in other newspapers such as the Stabroek News.
On election day, the voter lists should be clearly posted
outside polling places and kept there. Everyone authorized to be
in the polling place should be given a copy of the latest text of
national registration list by a computer (an "IBM 3742"), it fol-
lows that the government could also produce the list in a
computer data-base form. If the opposition parties or GUARD had
the list in this form, with some technical assistance, the task
of mounting objections would be greatly simplified.
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the Representation of the People Act and all applicable
regulations. Polling agents must be permitted to observe
everything that goes on, including the identification of
prospective voters, the examination of their identity cards and
the comparison of the voter list to the identification card.
Polling agents should be permitted to have their own copies of
the voter lists, to mark on them, and to keep notes and take
photographs if they so desire.
All of these things are either required by statute or have
been promised by the government. Those promises should be kept.
Americas Watch believes that a substantial observer presence will
ensure that they are.
6. Acceptance of technical assistance. A number of
international groups have offered to provide technical assistance
in the conduct of the elections, from the printing of the ballots
to handling communications and transportation on election day. In
particular, the following items of technical assistance would be
valuable as a means of ensuring the integrity of the balloting
and should be accepted by the government and the Elections
Commission:
- New ballot boxes. In the past, ballot boxes
reportedly have been taken apart or otherwise tampered with.
Sturdy ballot boxes, counted and marked or otherwise con-
trolled so that they could not be substituted, could prevent
such abuses.
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- Printing and control of ballots. Americas Watch
received consistent reports of fraud in the printing and
control of ballot papers. The Elections Commission refused
to tell Americas Watch who would print the ballots for the
upcoming election and further stated that such information
would never be released for "security" reasons. If an
independent source provided the ballots, which would be
controlled and unable to be duplicated, such fraud could be
prevented.
- Transportation and communications. Members of the
government, the Elections Commission and the opposition
parties all discussed the problems of traveling to and
communicating with remote polling places. All opposition
parties, as well as the Elections Commission, recognized the
problems of ensuring that the vehicles used to transport the
ballot boxes to the place of final counting be large enough
to carry the opposition polling agents as well. With
international assistance, vehicles could be rented -- there
is an ample supply of minivans in and around Georgetown --
or provided by others.
- Publishing the electoral laws. The laws governing
elections are not generally available. Americas Watch tried
for a month to obtain a copy and was finally told by the
Attorney General's office to make its own. Section 40(1)(c)
of the Representation of the People Act requires that each
50
Presiding Officer receive "sufficient copies of this Act"
for use at the polling place, but that has apparently never
happened. With international assistance, enough copies could
be printed so that everyone, including all opposition
polling agents and all international observers, could have
copies.
- Improved finger ink. When a voter has voted, his or
her finger is dipped in "electoral ink" to prevent a second
vote. There have been many reports of such ink being washed
off in past elections. International assistance could
provide better ink, that could not be washed off.
7. Long-term changes. Beyond these essential, short-term
changes -- which must be put in place before the next election --
there are a number of long-range changes which should be made if
the independence and freedom of future Guyanese elections are to
be guaranteed.
Most important is the reconstitution and revitalization of
the Elections Commission. The current scheme, in which an
Elections Commission with limited membership, controlled by the
ruling party, delegates the conduct of the elections to the
government, should be replaced by an open and independent plan,
in which a widely representative Elections Commission controls
the entire electoral mechanism, independent of the government or
any party. Such a commission should have representation from a
broad range of Guyanese society and should conduct its meetings
51
and operations in the open, rather than behind closed doors, as
is now the case. And the Commission should develop a means of
generating and maintaining a clean and honest voter list, in a
process that is open to all parties.
As for the elections themselves, the means must be found to
appoint Presiding Officers and other election officials from all
segments of the Guyanese political spectrum -- or from genuinely
nonpartisan individuals -- instead of solely from the ranks of
those beholden to the PNC. Furthermore, separate voting by the
disciplined forces should be abolished; such forces should vote
along with everyone else, unless absolutely required to be on
duty on election day.
Conclusion
Without the basic and fundamental changes outlined above,
the next Guyanese election will be a repeat of those of the last
quarter century. With certain basic changes, the election can be
free and fair, a significant step in the restoration of the
Guyanese people's confidence in the political process. In the
longer term, broader national reforms can be instituted to
guarantee the freedom of Guyanese politics and elections in the
years to come. |
