GUYANA | The PPP and GECOM Must Stop Playing Games With Our Democracy

GEORGETOWN, Guyana, July 4, 2025. As Guyanese prepare for another round of General and regional Elections, we must face the truth: the system is being manipulated in plain sight, and the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), aided and abetted by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), is setting the stage to undermine the will of the people.

History teaches us that when democratic institutions are hijacked by narrow political interests, it is always the working class, the ordinary man and woman, who pays the price. This election cycle, like many before it, is already clouded with allegations: -multiple voting, ballots cast in the names of the dead, the missing, the migrated, and ballot box stuffing. These are not figments of imagination. These are accusations rooted in decades of electoral misconduct that Guyanese know too well.

The PPP, both in government and in opposition, has shouted about transparency and credibility. But when push comes to shove, when the time came to do the right thing and institute biometric voter identification, a tool that could drastically cut down on fraud, they turned their backs on the Guyanese people.

Instead, they now want to introduce some new ID system, conveniently timed and framed as something to ‘differentiate citizens from residents’ and ‘facilitate travel and business.’ That’s what we’re told. But the truth is simpler: The PPP wants to avoid biometrics because it will block the party’s ability to manipulate the vote.

This is not just dangerous; it is wicked. This is how elections are stolen before a single vote is cast. This is how a nation is pushed to the brink.

President Irfaan Ali and Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo have a constitutional duty to protect the credibility of our democracy. But their actions, or rather inaction, tell a different story. They are aided by a GECOM that refuses to act independently and seems content to take legal advice from the very Attorney General who is a declared candidate for the PPP. This is not how democracy works.

Further, the failure to prorogue the 12th Parliament tells us something sinister is in the works. The PPP may be biding time to return and pass bill(s) to raid the treasury or tamper with the electoral framework. The people of this country must not sleep on this.

We have seen this level of wickedness before. We know how it ends—with division, with violence, with the working class made to suffer while political elites thrive.

The PPP has long benefited from electoral malpractices and rejects reforms when those reforms block their path to power. They are masters of political double standards- crying foul when it suits them, and silencing dissent when it doesn’t.

Let me make it very clear: the PPP is laying the groundwork to rig the 2025 elections. They have turned GECOM into a political appendage. They have harassed, criminalised, and replaced key electoral officials. For years now, they have failed to identify or hold accountable a single presiding officer from the lower East Coast Demerara who refused to carry out their lawful duties. And they have not done this because those persons were handsomely rewarded for doing the PPP’s bidding.

We must also say this without apology: any presiding officer in 2015 who failed to submit Statements of Poll, as required by the Representation of the People Act, has no place in the next election. Their presence on duty again would confirm what many already fear—GECOM is complicit.

Let us not be naïve. The PPP is not only tampering with electoral systems, they are criminalising dissent, weaponising the law, and dismantling safeguards meant to protect the people. They are setting up to jail political opponents and justify it with laws they twist and turn to suit themselves.

The ordinary people of this country—the workers, the farmers, the miners, the vendors, the civil servants—must understand that when the electoral system is rigged, it is your rights, your voice, and your future that is stolen.

I say this without fear of contradiction: the time has come for all right-thinking Guyanese to stand up, speak out, and push back against this creeping authoritarianism. If we allow the PPP to use GECOM as a blunt instrument to subvert democracy, then the next stolen election won’t just be about who sits in office; it will be about who rules over a silenced, broken nation.

This country does not belong to the PPP, or any party. It belongs to the people, all the people. And the people must reclaim it, with vigilance, with unity and with righteous defiance.

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