Dear Editor,
I am vain enough to think that GECOM was convinced by my argument that a particular (statistical) standard of proof would be required for the results of the recount to have been put aside because of “anomalies and discrepancies”, in favour of some other results for the final declaration of the March 2, 2020 general and regional elections.
What I didn’t envisage was the penultimate step – the submission of a report on the recount by the Chief Election Officer to GECOM, which now has to determine what it will do about his remark that “the anomalies … does (sic) not appear to satisfy the criteria of impartiality, fairness, and compliance with the provisions of the Constitution and the ROPA (Representation of the People Act).”
We really ought to consider the “economics” of what is now before GECOM. In the first instance, a distinction between private and social costs ought to be made. Privately, it costs the CEO absolutely nothing to file a report such as the one he submitted, but the potential social costs are enormous – at a minimum, we might be talking about new elections. We may also be talking about the economic implications of a state of emergency. These costs will not be borne either by the CEO, or even by GECOM itself, but rather will be borne by every single Guyanese – including those that are yet unborn. We have here a classic instance of a so-called negative externality. If climate change is the world’s biggest market failure, then the divergence in private and social costs in the decision about what to do with the CEO’s report is potentially Guyana’s biggest “nonmarket” or institutional failure. In a market, the solution to such a “market failure” would entail making the Commissioners who support the CEO’s conclusion bear the cost of any new elections that might be called, plus all other costs associated with the state of emergency that will ensue. As our laws don’t contemplate this solution we can be assured that the Guyanese people as a whole – both those who support the call for fresh elections and those who don’t, would pick up the tab.
A complete discussion ought to consider the benefits of calling fresh elections, but what matters more than any potential divergence between private and social benefits would be the distribution of the aggregate (expected) benefits to society. As interesting as this might be, an even more significant thing, however, is that fresh elections would be the death-knell for elections in Guyana: any rational loser of future elections would just have to force a recount, and costlessly object to every single anomaly and discrepancy, real and imagined, in every future election to be held in Guyana.
Because successful elections require parties to cooperate in accepting a result without having much more information than the count itself, a decision by GECOM to uphold the CEO’s conclusion and call fresh elections will give every future rational loser the opportunity to “hold up” elections, exactly as happens when a party that has made a commitment (say to honour the results of an election) can be held ransom by another party that intends to use the CEO’s “recount and reject” strategy.
Putting aside the politics of the day, a decision by GECOM to call fresh elections would, therefore, be equivalent to a now-famous call for the “ballots to be burned (tomorrow and forever)” to allow the will of the people to prevail.
One would hope that GECOM decides that elections are a good thing, not because they are necessarily and inherently so, but because it’s the business of GECOM to hold periodic elections.
Yours faithfully,
Thomas B. Singh
