WORLD

PPP calls for new election
in face of open PNC fraud

GEORGETOWN, Dec. 10 — When
the ruling People’s National Congress
party of President Desmond Hoyte cal-
led a snap election in Guyana for Dec. 9
six weeks ago, the Tribune contacted
Cheddi Jagan, leader of the People’s
_ Progressive Party and the leader of the
Official Opposition in Guyana’s parlia-
ment for his reaction (Tribune, Nov. 11).

At that time, Jagan warned of the pos-
sibility of massive vote rigging by the
ruling PNC, the sort that has kept that
party in power in three elections. ‘‘We
have been calling for free and fair elec-
tions,”’ Jagan said then. ‘‘The main prob-
lem is ballot box tampering by the army
and actual hijacking of boxes.”’

Jagan’s worst fears have proven true.

Guyana went to the polls Dec. 9, 1985
and, when contacted one day later, the
PPP reported it had pulled out of the
electoral process half way through elec-
tion day because of rigging, threats and
physical violence against its agents and
even against Cheddi Jagan himself.
Twenty-one hours after polling stations
closed (6 p.m.), only one region had re-
ported any results. Boxes, under army

~and PNC control remained quarantined.

Because of this crude rigging, the
Working People’s Alliance which, along
with the PPP command majority support
in Guyana, joined the PPP in pulling out
of the rigged election. Four other smaller
parties have protested the PNC-army
rigging and violence.

Reached at PPP headquarters in
Georgetown, at 3 p.m., Dec. 10, Janet
Jagan, a leading party spokesperson,
editor of the PPP paper ‘‘Mirror’’ and an
MP, told the Tribune: ‘“Yesterday, they
refused to admit PPP agents at a number
of polling places. Then they began evict-
ing agents from ours and other parties
from voting places. They were using
threats and actual force.

“One of our agents was told after

being kicked out, ‘If you come back,
you'll have your grave here’. These acts
were carried out by PNC thugs. The
presiding electoral officer and police pre-
sent made no effort to protect the polling
agent. Some 26 of our agents were re-
moved this way in Georgetown alone.

““As head of the PPP election list,
Cheddi Jagan is allowed to visit polling
stations, and he went out. At one station,
where he tried to have an evicted PPP
agent reinstated, and where only a PNC
agent was allowed in, a scuffle took
place. Cheddi was thrown down the
steps.

‘British correspondent Tony Jenkins,
who had followed Jagan, was nearly
murdered. When Cheddi returned to at-
tempt to protect Jenkins, who was liter-
ally being torn apart, two plainclothes

police put cocked revolvers to Cheddi’s.

head. Both he and Jenkins were arrested.*

and held for 90 minutes at the police sta-
tion. Our video camera and Jenkins’ tape
recorder were seized by police.

“In answer to our protests,” Janet
Jagan continued, ‘“‘the police com-
missioner blamed Cheddi for the _inci-
dent, claiming he had pointed his finger at
the presiding electoral officer.

“On the basis of all these acts, our
party decided yesterday (Dec. 9) at about
5 p.m., not to continue the electoral pro-
cess and to call off our polling and count-
ing agents because we feared for their
lives and safety.”’

Jagan explained that the big issue in
this election was ‘‘to protect the ballot
box’’. She said that, despite the PPP
pullout, many agents in rural areas,

GEORGETOWN, Dec. 11 —
‘*We are prepared to face a new elec-
tion with independent supervision to
show that what happened Dec. 9 is a
total farce,’’ PPP leader Cheddi
Jagan told the Tribune today.

He had issued this challenge at a
press conference a day earlier as the
results of the PNC-army operation
showed the PNC ‘‘winning’’ 70 per
cent. ‘‘We also plan a straw poll,
conducted by polsters, in the near
future,’’ he continued.

Jagan reported that low voting oc-
curred in traditional PNC areas and
high voting in PPP areas. ‘‘To win,”’
he said, ‘“The PNC had to evict our
agents from polling places and then
stuff the ballot boxes. They also dis-
enfranchized many PPP voters.’’

of letters’? be sent to the govern-

new, free and supervised elections.

ment and election commission
protesting this fraud and calling for

seats

Jagan appealed ‘‘an avalanche -

CHEDD! JAGAN

JANET JAGAN

without phones, didn’t receive the PPP
instructions. ‘‘Our first request was that
ballots be counted at place of poll with all
agents present. That refused, we then
asked that all agents be allowed to ac-
company boxes, to keep them in sight
from the closing of the polls to time of
counting.” ‘
Some PPP agents, who didn’t receive
pullout notification, Jagan continued,
accompanied boxes from place of poll to
counting places. ‘‘But as soon as they
reached the counting place, they were —
stopped by the army. The boxes were
then taken into a totally cordoned-off
area. At this time, they sit in counting —
places in 10 regions. No one has access
to them. So far, 21 hours later, they’ve
only declared a count in one region.

“Obviously, the boxes have beenheld

long enough for tampering to take
place,’’ she said. Then, in a grim voice,
Jagan remarked, *“‘They’re probably hav-
ing trouble in how to apportion the votes.
It’s a total rigging. We’ve received re-
ports from hundreds of areas and they all
confirm it was an army operation.”

— T.M.

Anti-regime actions —
Challenge Chile junta

= is By A. ALLARD

_ Recently the daily newspaper
“El Mercurio’’ in Santiago,

Chile, dedicated three editorials
in an effort to minimize the im-
portance of the elections of the
Federation of Students of the
University of Chile (FECH)

: 5 which took place on Oct. 31.

The elections of Chilean uni-
versity students have always

been an important guideline to the

_ political preferences of the coun-
try: it was so up to the moment a
_ military coup destroyed the con-
_ $titutional government of Presi-
dent Salvador Allende, and it con-
tinues to be so under the dictato-
ial government of Pinochet. The
university students have suc-
_ ceeded in opening up a breach in
the wall of daily university life,
and in spite of the fact that, ac-
- cording to Pinochet, political ac-
_ tivity is closed, with parties out-
lawed, the actual facts indicate
something else. Political parties
_ still have a voice in the country in
spite of persecution and re-
pression, their official spokesmen
ke declarations, they hold

_ meetings, name candidates for

trade unions and student and col-
lege unions.

The FECH barometer at the
University of Chile has begun to
function again. In the last elec-
tions, the most important political
currents were represented and
the final results indicated a vic-
tory for candidates representing
parties opposing the regime. The
Christian Democrats and the
Popular Democratic Movement
(composed of Communists, some
Socialists and the MIR) obtained
the first relative majority. The
Christian Democrats are suppor-
ters of the National Accord which
demands the exit of Pinochet, an
accord whichis also subscribed to
by the social democrats, various
socialist groups, the MAPU
Workers’ and Peasants’ Party and
the Right Republicans. The Popu-
lar Democratic Movement (MDP)
holds together the forces of the
Marxist left.

The vote count by the officer of
the court gave the win, by a nar-
row 74 votes, to the Democratic
Accord (Christian Democrats and
Social Democrats) with a vote of
5,648. The Popular Democratic

186 PACIFIC TRIBUNE, DECEMBER 18, 1985

Movement received 5,574. In
light of these results, the big win-
ner was the Popular Democratic
Movement (MDP) which almost
doubled its vote of 3,107 in 1984 to
the current 5,574 representing an
increase from 22.9to 32.8 percent.
The Christian Democrats main-
tained its 32.8 per cent and the
vote for the Right Front reached
3,801 votes which represents 22.3
per cent.

The big loser in the balloting
was the Socialist Bloc whose vote
fell from 9.8 to only 6.1 per cent.
According to the statutes of the
FECH, the contest has to be de-
cided by a second vote, but what
remains clear is that the opposi-
tion to Pinochet was the big win-
ner and that of a total of almost
15,000 votes, the forces opposing
the regime won more than 12,000.
votes. The candidate for the
MDP, Communist Gonzalo Rov-
ira, Vice-Presidetn of the student
organization, emphasized after
the election that the task now ‘‘is
unity. Neither the MDP nor the
Christian Democrats won here.
We all won.”

A day before the FECH elec-
tion, Chilean women staged a
march in support of the trade
‘union leaders jailed by the.
government:
Jose Ruiz DiGiorgio, Manuel
Bustos, Eduardo Valenzia and
Mario Araneda. The women, led
by Carmen Frei, daughter of ex-
president Eduardo Frei and
Fanny Pollarolo, representative
of the MDP, confronted fierce
repression unleashed by the
police, and in spite of the use of
toxic gases and water cannons,
-held their position for more than
three hours.

November 4 and 5 brought to
life the call of the National Com-
mand of the Working People in
support of their jailed leaders and
in support of the demand for so-
cial, political and economic re-
covery. The National Command
of the Working People publicly
delivered a document in which it
indicated that in order to succeed
in bringing back democracy to the
country ‘‘we have defined as our
tasks coordinated activity, social
mobilization and political under-
standing.’’ They also commented
that ‘‘the hunger strike of our
jailed leaders, the women’s
march for life, the dock workers’
strike, the march of the copper
workers in Calma and Chugi-
camata show us that only social
mobilization can give power to
the search for reasonable solu-

Rodolfo Sequel, ©

tions to the profound crisis into
which General Pinochet has
plunged the country.”

The repressive violence against
the peaceful protest of November —
5 and 6 left five dead, 35 wounded
and more than 1,000 detained. In
the militant neighbourhood of La
Victoria, military forces occupied
the streets for 24 hours, firing on
people and houses. Most of the
detainees were students — in the
School of Engineering alone there
were about 400.

A week earlier the opposition
magazine ‘‘Analisis’’ said edito-
rially: “‘There are no political or
moral reasons which justify the

prolongation of the regime. It is

evident that the present gover-
nors lack even minimal citizen —

support and that theirresidencein

the Moneda (Government House)
is only explained by the military
power and repression which they
use against the will of the people.
Nothing else can explain the con-
tinuation of these reprehensible |
times. Already Pinochet can offer —
nothing to the people except to
accentuate his political repression
and thereby provoke the un-
stoppable growth of the anger of
the Chilean people. Every day
that Pinochet remains in power is -
a certain sign that social tensions —
will grow, our daily life will de-
teriorate further and the political
exit will be less peaceful.” ae