effort to improve his electoral chances in the 1968 election. This scheme was unsuccessful. In 1967, Burnham stated that "overseas vote figures could be manipulated pretty much as he wished". Burnham later stated that he would "identify and register all Guyanese of African ancestry in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States in order to get their absentee votes in the next election", and suggested that Indo-Guyanese living abroad may have trouble getting registered or receiving ballots. In October 1966, Venezuelan soldiers occupied Ankoko Island in Guayana Esequiba. Burnham demanded the withdrawal of Venezuelan armed forces, but his request was denied. 1968 general election The PNC attained a majority government in the general elections of 1968 through electoral fraud, using an inflated "overseas vote" to skew the results in their favor. The PNC won 93.7% of the 36,745 overseas ballots, allowing Burnham to claim an absolute majority. An independent review by the Opinion Research Center of London was only able to verify 15% of the entries on the overseas list. An investigation looking into the identity of some of the voters found that two horses near Manchester, a closed butcher's shop in Brooklyn and a railway in London had been counted as registered voters, and there were many addresses where the reported voters had never been resident. Only just over 100 voters of 900 checked in the United Kingdom were genuine, and in New York only 40% were genuine. Peter D'Aguiar called it "a seizure of power by fraud, not an election." Rupununi Uprising and Tigri Area dispute In 1968, a conference of 40,000 Amerindian people presented demands to Burnham, being dissatisfied with his afrocentrist policies. The Agriculture Minister declared that the inhabitants' land ownership certifications would no longer be recognized and the zone would be occupied by the Afro-Guyanese population. A provisional secessionist government was declared and attacks on Lethem began. The uprising was ultimately quelled by the Guyana Defence Force (GDF). In 1969, following the establishment of Camp Tigri by Surinamese authorities, the Guyana Defense Force would take Camp Tigri and assert authority over the Tigri Area. Guyana continues to hold the camp despite a 1970 agreement to withdraw military forces. Establishment of the Co-Operative Republic of Guyana Before 1970, Burnham mostly pursued moderate political policies. In 1970, he veered sharply to the left and established relations with Cuba (8 December 1972) and the Soviet Union (17