THE OPPOSITION NEEDS A SCAPEGOAT TO AVOID THE WRATH OF ITS SUPPORTERS

July 8, 2013, By KNews, Filed Under Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom, Source

The ABC countries are meddling in the internal affairs of Guyana. But they have earned the luxury of doing so because for many years they bankrolled elections in Guyana.

While Guyana has come a far way in financing its own elections, the high degree of political suspicion that exists over the results of elections, suspicions that are often manufactured by the Opposition who have a great difficulty in coming to terms with its electoral defeats, there will continue to be the need for foreign input into our elections to avoid charges and counter charges about its conduct.

In fact, so much suspicion exists over the results of elections in Guyana that a simple mistake in a calculation can cause a riot in the streets. Right now, there are forces calling for the removal of the Chief Elections Officer simply because he made a mistake, not in the count of the votes, but in the application of a formula which decides how seats are allocated.

It is not the responsibility of the Chief Elections Officer to announce the results of the elections. That is the responsibility of the Commissioners. As such, it is the responsibility of the Commissioners to check the calculations relating to the formula for apportioning seats. This is the responsibility of every Commissioner.  The fact that there may have been a human error on the part of an officer does not remove that obligation.

If it can be established that the mistake was deliberate, then action should be taken forthwith, not belatedly, since this would amount to an attempt to deceive the Commissioners. If however, it is found that there was a human error, then a reprimand is in order because to err is human.

Unfortunately, there is a proclivity in Guyana for scapegoats to be found whenever the Opposition loses an election. The heads of someone is always called for so as to deflect from the loss of the Opposition. It seems that quite belatedly, the Chief Elections Officer is going to be made into a political scapegoat over what is a calculation mistake, something that is done almost every day in the schools of this country. Imagine if a child had to be taken out of school for making a calculation mistake.

The precedent that will be set by the removal of the Chief Elections Officer is one that this country will regret. It means that those who man the election machinery in the country will be working under tremendous pressure, afraid of the consequences- including protesters carrying out vigils in front of your homes- if you should make a human mistake in the system.

This will mean that those who are responsible for counting the ballots and announcing results will exercise greater caution in their work and this will mean that it will take longer for the results of any election to become known because no one wants to miscount a single ballot or make any addition mistake for fear of the consequences.

Already however, the long time- close to a week- that it takes for the results of the elections to become known has triggered suspicions about those results and the ABC countries have themselves, after the last elections, called for the results to be declared more quickly.

Ironically, for this to happen would subject the system to the possibility of human error which in itself would lead to protests over the results of the elections.

The ruling party and the opposition parties know by the next morning after the elections what is the outcome of the elections. They have polling agents in almost every polling station and they obtain a copy of the statements of poll and are able to quickly tabulate the results and know how they have performed.

At the official level, however, this simple case of adding two thousand polling station results takes a week because the laws of Guyana require a process by which the results are announced first in the individual districts before they can be announced nationally. This is what causes much of the delay and the ensuing problems, not human error by any election official.

If the ABC countries are so keen on holding Local Government Elections, they should offer to take over the entire election process and run it for the country. But will this alleviate the problems. It would not because the various processes by which the count has to be declared has to be undertaken before the results can be announced formally.

The greatest obstacle to electoral efficiency in Guyana is the attitude of the Opposition towards their defeat. They simply refuse to accept the results, throw public tantrums, question the integrity of the process and end up looking silly when provided with the official count at each polling station and when they cannot prove that there were serious irregularities that would have altered the outcome of the elections.

The Opposition in this country created the impression that there were serious irregularities with the results of the 2011 elections. They took to protest action and demanded hard and soft copies of the results from the Elections Commission so that they could undertake their own verification.

They took months to reconcile the result of 2000 polling stations. They have not provided the public with the evidence of massive fraud, and in typical fashion, they have decided to deflect from this failure by resurrecting an internal incident within the Commission and using this as the basis for the removal of the Chief Elections Officer.

Such a removal will only undermine confidence in the system because it will suggest that there were serious problems within the electoral machinery which could call into question the results of future elections.

The Opposition is not interested in building greater confidence in the system. They are interested in creating political scapegoats so that the wrath of their supporters would not turn against a leadership, which has failed since 1992 to deliver an election victory.

Were mistakes made by the Opposition which is responsible for them losing every election since 1992? Was there any human error involved? If so who is to be held accountable?

How come the Opposition continues to lose election after election and yet the leadership remains undisturbed? Yet they have audacity to condemn someone for making a mistake in calculation.