Were the PPP 2013 congress elections manipulated?

Dear Editor,
Were the 2013 PPP congress results fixed and manipulated? Was there fraud at the PPP congress elections? Election fraud and manipulation is illegal and unfair interference with the electoral process that can and do affect the outcome of the elections. We know there were smear campaigns, mudslinging and influence peddling at the recent PPP congress. Donald Ramotar and Clement Rohee have commented on it (see “Probe likely into campaigning for PPP Central Committee elections”, Demerara Waves, August 19, 2013).
Moses Nagamootoo and Ralph Ramkarran have spoken and written about this vulgar, poisonous, vitriolic and manipulative pressure practice to try to alter the outcome of PPP congress votes. Then there is the grave concern raised in Dennis Scott Chabrol’s article in Demerara Waves titled “PPP to declare election results Sunday; Nokta didn’t seek office” (August 3, 2013). This article noted there were 1,097 delegates were eligible to cast ballots for the 35 Central Committee members and five candidate members but there were 1,599 ballots!
Now, if this information is correct, this is very troubling, shocking, dangerous, abominable, an assault on democracy and a denial of the democratic expression of PPP supporters and members and potential fraud. You cannot have 1097 eligible voters and have 1599 ballots. No election can be democratic with such a fraudulent and unfair structure. The cornerstone of democracy is one person one vote or one ballot for one voter.
To have 1097 eligible voters and 1599 ballots is to practise electoral fraud and democratic denial. If somehow the PPP 2013 congress election allowed some of those delegates who voted the right to cast more than one ballot, it was a fraudulent election, inconsistent with the principles of democracy and with the Constitution of Guyana and warrants a police investigation and constitutional challenge by PPP members.
The third concern with the PPP congress elections is what appears to be a denial of the right to vote by some PPP delegates. Apparently, at the last minute before the actual vote, chosen and handpicked delegates were given a special delegate yellow card which allowed them to vote while others were excluded. The fourth signal to potential fraud and manipulation at the PPP’s recent congress is the delegate selection process.
The last congress in 2008 generated swirling accusations of delegate selection manipulation by the individual in charge of it in order to pad his votes and popularity. This is nothing new to the PPP but the outrageous results gained by Ramotar and Jagdeo with 886 and 851 votes respectively and other bizarre occurrences like the election of Kwame McKoy to the PPP Central Committee in 2013 raise heightened suspicion of electoral manipulation.
Let us examine the numbers to see if these stupendous returns by Ramotar and Jagdeo meet the statistical smell test, particularly after it was evident that before the Congress some PPP members openly campaigned against some, including Jagdeo, seeking position on the Central Committee. In the 2008 congress where there was no active agenda and campaign against Jagdeo and others before the congress and where Jagdeo was at the height of his popularity following the 2006 election result, Jagdeo got 777 votes, the highest ever vote count in a PPP congress.
How could Ramotar and Jagdeo, the two pariahs responsible for the political shame and humiliation of the PPP with its tumultuous fall from grace since 2011 amidst scandals and corruption, get 886 and 851 votes in a PPP congress post-2011? Based on statistical experience from the 2005 and 2008 congresses where between 1000 and 1100 delegates were eligible to vote, it is obvious that in order to garner the stupendous numbers Jagdeo and Ramotar obtained (886 and 851 votes respectively), the actual votes cast had to be incredibly high. However, this was certainly not the case in 2013.
Votes cast for the 35 Central Committee (CC) members were as follows for the following congresses: 2005 (14,476), 2008 (15,378) and 2013 (15,909). There are no statistics for how many were eligible to vote in 2005 and how many actually voted. In 2008, 1020 were eligible to vote and 913 actually voted. In 2013, 1096 were eligible to vote but the PPP never revealed how many delegates actually voted, another red flag. In 2013 there were 531 more CC votes cast than in 2008 although there were 76 more eligible voters with 35 CC votes each for a maximum of 2660 more possible votes. This alone confirms the voter participation rate in 2013 was lower than 2008 and further confirms that the Jagdeo and Ramotar results are a shocking statistical outlier based on past experience!
Further, if we look at the average of votes cast by eligible voter for the selection of the CC, it is patently obvious that eligible voters voted at a lesser rate than in 2008 (15.08 versus 14.51 based on 15378/1020 vs 15909/1096). Yet, in statistically stupendous, shocking and bizarre fashion, Donald Ramotar and Bharrat Jagdeo soared to staggering, never-before-seen and never-before-produced heights. 2008 produced the highest average of votes cast by eligible voter yet the highest vote getter (Jagdeo) got only 777 votes. Donald Ramotar has never obtained more than 637 votes at any PPP congress.
Kwame McKoy has never ever been elected to the Central Committee before 2013 and he remains one of the most unpopular figures with PPP members. Yet in 2013, Donald Ramotar and Jagdeo received 886 and 851 votes respectively and McKoy was elected to the CC. A question to those in the know – where do the loyalties of the 10 new faces to the Central Committee lie (Nigel Dharamlall, Shyam Nokta, Vishwa Mahadeo, Desmond Kissoon, David Armogan, Omar Sharif, Mohammed Haroon Hussein, Brian Allicock, Kwame Mc Coy and Chitreka Dass)? Are they Jagdeoites or Ramotarians, meaning they got their break, promotion, ascendancy and hold on position and power through or under Jagdeo and not Ramotar? After all, this is 29% of the vote in the Central Committee and they arrived in the CC after an election that stinks of manipulation, hijacking, fraud and fixing.
The silence of the lambs who support and vote for the PPP was expected on this overpowering stench emanating from the PPP congress election. So was their hypocrisy. There has not been a peep from them about this PPP congress election. It is only fitting for people who elected a former PNC-ite  in Kwame McKoy the highest office of the PPP. After this debacle of willingly accepting highly questionable internal elections, do PPP supporters have any moral basis to demand the PNC apologize for rigging elections?
Will PPP supporters and members be ever taken seriously if the PNC returns to power and rigs elections again? Will the international press and world powers ever listen to the PPP if it loses power and is rigged out of power forever? Do PPP supporters and members, predominantly Indians, think of the repercussions of their immoral posturing and the grave consequences of their silence to internal PPP atrocities? These mute prevarications from PPP supporters to grin and bear democratic and electoral debasement of their own will encourage tyranny and debasement by others. This is a dangerous journey unfolding in this nation and it will have tragic consequences if the political apple cart ever gets overturned.
M. Maxwell