Articles by Cheddi Jagan 1964-1992
Virtual Army Coup In Guyana
by Cheddi Jagan
At the recently-concluded general election, the People’s National Congress (PNC) was given for the 53-member National Assembly 37 seats, the People’s progressive Party (PPP) 14 and the Liberation Party 2.
But this allocation was not a reflection of the will of the people. For what took place on July 15 was not an election, but a “selection”. The PNC, with the help of the army, seized and impounded ballot boxes at army head-quarters in Georgetown, the capital, where they were tampered with.
To facilitate the tampering with ballot boxes, the PNC regime changed the electoral procedure. Prior to 1968, ballot boxes were taken to a central counting place in each constituency or electoral district. In 1968, they were transported over long distances to 3 centres only, one in each country. In 1973, two days before polling day, the law was changed, and all ballot boxes were brought to Georgetown, the capital, to Thomas Lands, where Army and Police Headquarters are located.
In 1968, poling agents and candidates of opposition parties were not permitted either to travel in the same vehicle with the boxes or to follow with other vehicles the vehicle with the boxes. With the electoral machinery completely under the control of the PNC, ballot boxes were tampered with. In one box for the Pomeroon electoral district were found four wads of ballot papers, marked PNC and wrapped with rubber bands.
Because of the extensive fraud for the 1968 general election, the PPP mounted a campaign for electoral reforms including:-
1) An impartial Elections Commission
2) New voters lists impartially compiled.
3) An end to proxy voting
4) An end to overseas voting
5) A preliminary count of ballots at place of poll.
6) Reduction of voting age from 21 to 18.
The PNC regime refused to accept these reforms, except voting at 18. The latter was agreed to only on May 26, 1973, after the regime had corruptly compiled a new register and was assured that it had majority of those between the ages 18 and 21 but leaving out thousands of youths from areas where the PPP is strong. Because of this, the PPP voted against a Constitutional amendment for the lowering of the voting age to 18.
Padding of Lists
Padding of the voters’ lists has become a regular feature of political life under the Burnham regime. In the 1968 election, the lists represented a 19 per cent increase for the 4-year period, 1964-68 as compared with a 22 per cent increase for the 11-year period, 1953-64.
For the July 1973 election, the lists increased by 25 per cent, an impossible feat considering a net population increase of about 2.5 per cent per year.
From official figures, the number of all Guyanese age 21 and above was 314,564 on April 7, 1973. Yet the voters lists as of May 31, 1973 had 384,434 names (not including 34,801 registered overseas voters). In other words, about 70,000 represented dead, underage and non-existent persons. These voted by means of the postal (first introduced in 1973) and proxy system of voting.
For the PNC stronghold, the Linden-Wismar-Christianburg area, the voters lists increased from 18,117 in 1968 to 24,968 in 1973. But the total population of the area in 1973, as estimated for a water survey by the US Company, James S. Montgomery, Consulting Engineers Inc. was 31,637. This means that about 79% of the population was adults over age 21!
Prior to and during the 1961 general election, proxy voting was several restricted. But in 1969, against the strong opposition of the PPP, there was some relaxation, and proxy votes jumped from about 300 in 1961, to 6,635 in 1964, of which the PPP secured only 9.6 per cent. A critical comment from the Commonwealth Team of Observers of the 1964 Election was that the “one administrative provision which seemed open to manipulation was the proxy vote…we feel it is our duty to point out that the proxy system is liable to abuse.”
And abuse there was. In 1969, because of further relaxation, proxy votes cast were estimated at about 30,000 (the lists of proxy votes were never published as required by law). But the official figure was 19,287, equivalent to about 7 per cent of the votes cast, without which the PNC would not have “won” 51 per cent of votes or a majority of one seat inside Guyana (overseas votes gave it a working majority of 7 seats). Because of criticisms of malpractices and other factors, the PNC regime restricted proxy voting in 1973 but permitted all those debarred the facility of postal voting.
Thus, there were for 1973 about 10,000 proxy votes and about 23, 000 postal votes, almost all of which went to the PNC on account of administrative manipulation and irregularities.
For instance, in South Georgetown, a certificate in the postal ballot box showed that 846 postal ballots were issued and 546 were cast. Yet, when the ballots were counted, there were 680 votes, and despite protests, the 134 extra ballots were recorded for the PNC.
As regards the overseas voting, first introduced in 1968, the PNC secured in the recent elections 98 per cent of the votes cast as compared with 95 per cent in 1968.
Commenting on the 1968 electoral fraud, Mr Humphrey Taylor, Director of Opinion Research Centre in the Granada TV expose, “The Making of a Prime Minister”, said:
“Obviously I don’t know what happened in Guyana, but as far as Britain is concerned, the compilation of the register was a totally dishonest and corrupt operation. And, as we have clearly established, the great majority of the people listed, do not exist. This I would think is unprecedented for a Commonwealth country, as far as I know; and it’s you know, a pretty awful and disgraceful episode.
Granada’s Research Editor, Gus Macdonald in the same film said:
“It is my firm conclusion that the election inside Guyana was neither free nor fair”
Now, in another film, Granada TV has again exposed the extensive electoral fraud which helped the PNC to remain in power.
But the greatest fraud took place through the tampering with the ballot boxes. All the boxes, except those for Georgetown, was stored in the Lecture Room at Army Headquarters for long hours, even days, before they were taken to the 3 counting centres.
Here, keys could not fit locks; many boxes had to be broken into. Seals in the majority of boxes had been damaged.
The numbers of ballots cast did not tally with the numbers found in several boxes. In four boxes for the North-West electoral district were found 2 wads of ballot papers wrapped with elastic bands or held together with paper clips!
For the Mazaruni-Potaro district, parcels of ballots were found folded together not twice as required by law, but once.
Objection had been raised and recorded about the wrong official stamping at a Canal Polder polling division of each ballot paper on the inside. When the box was opened, all the ballots were stamped on the outside, as required by law, and marked for the PNC!
Nothing but fraud and tampering with ballot boxes could explain the massive voter turnout of 93.4 and 98.6 per cent respectively for the Northwest and the Mazaruni-Potaro districts. These are sparsely-populated but extensive areas with long distances between polling stations.
By contrast, in the compact 8 districts in Georgetown, the voter turnout averaged about 70 per cent. And in 4 of these districts, the PNC votes dropped absolutely. But in the Northwest district, PNC votes increased from 6,789 in 1968 to 13,090 in 1973, and in Mazaruni-Potaro from 9,701 to 15,974!
The PNC claims that its “victory” of 37 seats was the result of serious inroads into PPP strongholds. This is mere propaganda. My personal estimate is that the PPP true strength is about 60 per cent of the electorate. That is why the PNC regime vigorously opposed the post-election proposal of the PPP to conduct at its own expense impartially-supervised polls in one or more of the several electoral districts claimed to have been won by the PNC.
A new stage has now been reached in the struggle for national liberation and socialism in Guyana. The people, through their own bitter experience, have come to realize that they cannot win political power so long as the PNC is in complete control of the electoral machinery, the police and army.
In 1964, the PNC with only 40 per cent of the votes came to power in coalition with the United Force (UF) through the support of Anglo-American imperialism and a change from the first-past-the-post, constituency voting system to proportional representation.
In 1968, the PNC “won” power without the UF through electoral fraud and overseas voting. In 1973, fraud alone could not suffice; the army actively intervened and even shot and teargassed the electorate to ensure a PNC victory.
The PPP has refused to take the 14 seats assigned to it on the grounds that the National Assembly does not reflect the will of the people, and has been reduced to a farce as a mere rubber stamp for the regime’s edicts. Instead, it has embarked on a campaign of civil resistance and non-cooperation.
In the coming months, mass struggles on all fronts will be intensified against the minority, racist, neo-fascist regime as it draws closer to imperialism, and accentuates its policy of corruption and bribery for the benefit of the ruling elite.
© Nadira Jagan-Brancier 2000
CIA and PNC Created The Violence
by Cheddi Jagan
Question: Dr Jagan, the PNC is claiming that the PPP has brought violence and the PNC has brought peace to Guyana. Would you like to comment on this?
ANSWER:
It depends what you mean by peace. There is peace with progress, dignity and freedom. There is also peace with starvation, insecurity and fear. And finally there is peace of the graveyard.
Take Germany under the Nazi party of Adolph Hitler. There was peace and order for a time. But it was in an atmosphere of repression, intimidation and terror. Ultimately there was mass slaughter.
What about the PNC’s claim that the PPP was responsible for the strife and disturbances? The fact is the violence was the handiwork of the PNC which could no longer win at free and fair elections.
In the 1957 election, the PPP faction led by LFS Burnham won only three out of 14 seats.
In 1961, the PNC lost the elections.
After losing the election, the PNC leader LFS Burnham made a deal with the US government. This was exposed by Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Special Assistant to President Kennedy in his book, A Thousand Day, John F. Kennedy in the White House, when he wrote:
“Thus far our policy was based on assumption that Forbes Burnham was, as the British described him, an opportunist, racist and demagogue intent only on personal power ..… Then in May 1962, Burnham came to Washington ….. Burnham’s visit left the feeling, as I reported to the President, that ‘an independent British Guiana under Burnham (if Burnham will commit himself to a multi-racial policy) would cause us many fewer problems than an independent British Guiana under Jagan’. And the way was open to bring it about, because Jagan’s parliamentary strength was larger than his popular strength: he had won 57 per cent of the seats on the basis 42.7% per cent of the vote. An obvious solution would be to establish a system of proportional representation.”
The American columnist, Drew Pearson, in a syndicated article pointed out that the late President Kennedy applied pressure on the Macmillan government to withhold independence and to change our electoral system.
The British government could not easily succumb to this pressure. This was because of its commitment made at the Constitutional Conference held in London in 1960. Then Burnham’s demand for proportional representation and my demand for independence were rejected on the understanding, however, that whichever party won the 1961 elections would lead the country to independence.
Consequently, the strife and violence, fomented and financed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to provide the British Government with an excuse.
All of this is now public knowledge. The New York Times, on February 23, 1967 headlined a story by Neil Sheehan: “CIA is linked to strikes that helped oust Jagan”. The London Sunday Times on April 16 and 23, 1967 carried two stored by the Insight Team, headed “How the CIA got rid of Jagan” and “Macmillian, Sandys backed CIA’s anti-Jagan Plot”. In the first story it is said: “As coups go, it was not expensive: over five years the CIA paid out something over £250,000. For the colony, British Guiana, the result was about 170 dead, untold hundreds wounded, roughly £10 million worth of damage to the economy and a legacy of racial bitterness.”
The second story said: “Although known at first only to Macmillan, Sandys and the two top security men in Britain, it inevitably become known to a similar number of British officials in Guiana.” The latter no doubt included the British Governor, the Commissioner of Police and the Head of Security Branch, and explains why my government could not get the full backing and support from them, and the army and police which they controlled.
Incidentally, the Times story also stated: “The CIA insured one ex-Jagan supported for $30,000 in 1964.”
Clearly, violence was the result of the conspiracy of the UK and US governments and the Guyana political and trade union leaders to overthrow the legally-constituted PPP government.
There is peace now because the perpetrators of violence are now in seats of political power.
But what kind of peace has been brought to Guyana? It’s terror, not peace.
The rights of the Guyanese people -- the right to travel, the right to demonstrate peacefully, the right to strike, the right to a fair trial, the right to vote -- are being trampled. All this is being done against the background of a wage freeze, increasing cost of living, economic bankruptcy, growing unemployment, disillusionment and frustration.
To keep the workers quiet, intimidation is practices on a wide scale.
Police dogs are used against strikers and picketers. And the latest is the use of the Riot squad, Police and soldiers with guns against strikers, who are mostly government supporters.
Under these circumstances, the PNC government, unable to win a fair and free election, has resorted to rigging mainly through a fraudulently compiled electoral roll. And at the same time, it is hatching plots about violence by the PPP in order to cover up its misdeeds.
The Guyanese people must realize that the PPP is the only party of the working class. And only a PPP government can bring lasting peace, progress and prosperity.
© Nadira Jagan-Brancier 2000
