President Irfaan Ali has vowed that there will be a revamped electoral machinery so that there is never a repeat of the long delays for elections results or blatant attempts to rig, experiences that he says he shudders to remember.
“We have to do and will do everything that must be done to safeguard this democracy, to have the reforms necessary in our electoral system, in our constitution, so that the generation to come won’t have [to] experience what we did and we won’t have to relive a moment like this,” Ali told Stabroek News in a Zoom interview on Tuesday as he recalled living through the elections ordeal from March 2 to August 2, when he was finally sworn in.
Asked to recall the events of March 5 when District 4 Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo first attempted to deliver fictitious declarations for his region, the first in a number of blatant attempts to rig the elections in favour of APNU+AFC, Ali said that it took a while for him to get over his initial shock.
