According to a most recent report on climate change, if global warming continues unchecked, by the year 2070 – just 50 years from now – the heat will be such that up to three billion people – almost 40 percent of the current world’s population – will be adversely affected by ‘warmer than conditions deemed suitable for human life to flourish’. This includes large portions of northern Africa, the Middle East, northern South America, South Asia, and parts of Australia. It is an extremely scary assessment by climate change experts, and although some of us will not be around by then, certainly our children and grandchildren, indeed future generations, will have to live under those conditions. To what extent they would be able to survive is anyone’s guess.
In December 2015, 196 countries agreed to the Paris Accord on Climate in which they pledged to take measures to keep global average temperature rise this century to well below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Five years on, little progress has been made to achieve this goal, with carbon emission levels, caused mainly from the extraction and burning of fossil fuels, reaching 416.21 parts per million last month. Current levels of CO2 emissions are higher than at any point in the last 800,000 years.
Several countries have taken steps to reduce the salaries of senior officials as a contribution to mitigating the economic downturn resulting from the coronavirus pandemic. St. Lucia’s Cabinet agreed to a 75 percent salary reduction while New Zealand’s top government officials would take a 20 percent pay cut. Similarly, Rwanda’s Cabinet donated their April salaries to the coronavirus fight while in Aruba senior government officials will take a ten percent pay cut for the rest of the year. Here in Guyana, we are yet to hear from the authorities of any similar actions being taken. Following the change in Administration in 2015, Ministers of the Government were granted significant increases in salaries, compared with the modest increases that government employees and old age pensioners have been receiving over the years.
In a previous article, we had stated that in the absence of an approved budget for 2020, the Minister of Finance would be unable to access the Consolidated Fund to meet expenditure on public services beyond 30 April 2020 since there is no legal or constitutional provision for him to do so. We did mention that he has recourse to the Contingencies Fund but the cumulative amount for any one year is restricted to not more than two percent of the preceding year’s approved Estimates. This works out to $6.014 billion which will not be enough until the new session of Parliament is convened and the Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure are presented to it for approval.
The convening of Parliament is dependent on the satisfactory conclusion of the recount of the votes in the 2 March 2020 elections currently underway. The exercise may take up to 60 days to complete based on the pace at which it is going. It therefore means that there will be no budget until August 2020, a situation that is not dissimilar to that which was experienced in 2015. One recalls the previous Minister authorising the withdrawal of $4.544 billion from the Consolidated Fund for the first half of 2014 to restore parts of the budget that the Assembly had reduced. When the related Financial Paper was presented to the Legislature, the then opposition parties (APNU and AFC) rejected it and eventually tabled a motion of no confidence in the Government. This triggered the prorogation of Parliament, its subsequent dissolution, and the holding of fresh elections in 2015. When judicial review was sought in relation to the Minister’s action, the Chief Justice ruled that the Minister violated the Constitution.
In today’s article, we continue from where we left off last week by tracking developments relating to the recount of the votes cast in the 2 March 2020 general and regional elections. The related Order was gazetted last Monday, and there were no material changes to the draft Order.
Status of vote recount
The recount commenced on last Wednesday without the presence of the Carter Center which has observed Guyana’s elections since 1992. In that year, the Center, headed by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, played a crucial role in the restoration of democracy in Guyana following a period of 24 years of authoritarian rule that benefited from five successive rigged elections. The Minister of Public Security disclosed that the Center had written directly to the President seeking approval for one of its representatives to travel to Guyana to observe the recount exercise.
There have been calls from various stakeholders, including the international community and the diplomatic community in Guyana, for the Center to be allowed to observe the recount. However, such calls remained unheeded without any satisfactory explanation being provided. The U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemispheric Affairs stated that ‘[t]he United States calls on the Government of Guyana to approve entry for the Carter Center and the IRI Global in order to ensure a transparent electoral recount. A credible recount requires robust international participation’. The Canadian Assistant Deputy Minister for the Americas, the United Nations and the EU Ambassador to Guyana echoed similar sentiments.
The first day of the recount saw only 25 ballot boxes opened and counted. One ballot box was filled with water, and there was a mysterious padlock on another box. In addition, the boxes were also not opened sequentially, which may create some confusion in terms of the orderliness of the recount. Some minor discrepancies were also reported. At the end of Thursday (Day 2), an additional 40 ballot boxes were recounted. According to reports, the exercise went smoothly. However, concerns have been raised at the slow pace of the recount which may take well beyond the 25 days projected. By Saturday (Day 4), 156 ballot boxes were counted, representing a mere 6.7 percent of the total number of ballot boxes to be counted.
Meanwhile, the diplomatic missions of the United States, Canada, UK and the EU met with Guyana’s Foreign Minister who gave the assurance that the recount ‘will (be done) expeditiously and in a transparent manner produce credible and final results of our elections’. It was the same Minister who had issued threats to withdraw the international observers’ accreditation following the disclosures by the observers of what transpired during the tabulation of the Statements of Polls (SOPS) for Region 4. These Heads of Mission had cause to walk out of the tabulation centre over the Returning Officer’s (RO) attempts at manipulating the results for that Region. The RO’s action resulted in warnings from the Western capitals that, should the Government be sworn in using flawed election results, it would lack legitimacy and would therefore provoke sanctions, presumably against the country as well as individuals involved, directly or otherwise, in the tampering of the results.
The imposition of sanctions against Guyana would be most disastrous for the country, considering that oil revenue will not materialize in the foreseeable future in the manner anticipated. Such sanctions are likely to include suspension of all loans, grants and other forms of assistance from multilateral financial institutions such as the IMF, World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, not to mention the freezing of the oil revenues held at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York. The United States may also prohibit American companies from doing business in Guyana, and this may have implications for the oil sector. Personal sanctions would most likely include cancellation of visas and the freezing of bank accounts held overseas. Since electoral fraud may be viewed as a serious human rights violation there may be criminal proceedings against the persons involved.
Statements from the diplomatic community
In a joint statement issued earlier, the diplomats from the United States, Canada, UK and the EU welcomed the presence of the CARICOM observer team and stressed the importance of full transparency in the recount process in ensure its credibility. In this regard, they expressed their regret that a broader range of international observers would not be present at the beginning of the recount. They nevertheless welcomed the decision to allow live-streaming and urged that it be used to the maximum extent possible. In a separate statement to mark Europe Day, the EU Ambassador had the following to say:
The EU plays a key role in diplomacy and works to foster stability, security, prosperity, democracy and human rights, fundamental freedoms and the rule of law at the international level together with our partners.
Almost every EU country including my own suffered war and dictatorship over the last century. I was born in a dictatorial regime and I don’t want that for anybody – not for Guyana, not for any country.
Allegations of discrepancies
During the recount, the APNU+AFC representatives made a number of allegations of irregularities. These include:
The IT manager and one other person held a secret meeting with two PPP/C agents. It turns out that the discussion took place in the open under the Centre’s dome and not in a room, as was alleged. The Commission’s spokesperson stated that the two officials were setting up equipment when they were approached by two party agents and that the ‘whole thing spun out of proportion and was termed a secret meeting’;
Discrepancies in the votes counted at a Yarrowkabra polling station. This turned out not to be true as the Statement of Poll (SOP) and the Statement of Recount (SOR) matched each other; and
Between 15 to 20 votes were from persons who had died or migrated. This is despite the fact that before a person was allowed to vote, he/she had to produce some form of identification. Besides, all the international and local observers were unanimous in their view that the elections were free and fair, a view that was also held by the President. The main opposition party stated that the issue is a matter that has to be dealt with via an elections petition and that it has not been uncovered during the recount exercise.
Concluding remarks
It is our sincere hope that the recount will be accelerated in the days to come and that a satisfactory outcome will be achieved. Those who are involved in the exercise, including the political parties, must avoid any attempt to derail the process by making allegations that cannot be substantiated. There is no doubt that the recount is likely to reflect minor discrepancies but these should in no way be magnified to indicate that the elections as a whole were not credible.
We are indifferent about who wins or who loses the elections. Our concern is that the results must reflect the will of the people. We have lived through the 24-year authoritarian rule resulting from the thwarting of that will. We have witnessed the destruction of our beloved country, once considered the breadbasket of the Caribbean, through the lack of accountability to the people via free, fair and credible elections. In the national interest, let us not repeat the mistakes of the past.
