Dear Editor,
Snippets of the Commonwealth Observers Report have now made their rounds in the news cycle. Every single Guyanese genuinely concerned about democracy should read every election observer report in full; whether they’re from the Commonwealth, the EU or from the Private Sector Commission. Heralding one report whilst sneering at the others is demonstrating transparent political bias. Nothing more and nothing less.
The Commonwealth Report is but the third Observers report to strike down the election lies peddled by WIN Leader Azruddin Mohamed. Initially, the indicted MP was quick to celebrate the EU Observers Report, despite said report affirming the “transparency” of the elections.
Now we have the Commonwealth Report. The Commonwealth election observers confirmed that “no evidence of leveraging voter roll inflation for electoral manipulation has been substantiated to date.” This decisively shreds the lies being peddled by BOTH WIN and APNU: that a bloated voters’ list was used to rig the elections.
Upon being sworn in as an MP, Mohamed claimed that the 2025 Elections were rigged; that GECOM’s results were fabricated. His evidence? He claimed that GECOM’s website briefly stopped working. Just recently, outside of the Magistrate’s Court, in an apparent imitation of Pakistan’s Imran Khan, he proclaimed to be the “real President” and once more insisted that GECOM’s numbers were fake.
The Commonwealth Report described Polling Day as “peaceful” whilst confirming that the count was “conducted in a transparent manner.” Following the completion of the count, the Report underscored that “all party representatives and polling staff signed the tally sheet.” This confirms, once more, that WIN polling agents signed off on every single SOP. Additionally, the Group commended GECOM for “improvements to the overall counting and tabulation process, which allowed for greater transparency.”
Summarising the report on their website, the Commonwealth Group confirmed the fairness of the process, dismantling the “free-but-not-fair” narrative peddled by members of the WIN camp in several public spaces; that somehow the electoral system was so contrived against the Opposition that voters were manipulated into democratically re-electing President Ali with a landslide majority. That flimsy narrative has been finally put to rest.
Finally, in closing, the Commonwealth Observer Group commended Guyana and her people for upholding their “steadfast commitment to democracy” whilst also praising GECOM for their “diligence” and “transparency” for the entirety of the electoral process; from tabulation all the way to declaration. Election lies are a cancer to the health of any democratic society; so too are those who spread them. With his election lies being discredited by the EU, the PSC and now the Commonwealth, one would hope that he now, finally, accepts this fundamental truth.