“The Guyana Constitution provides that every Guyanese over the age of 18 has a right to vote. It provides for no residency requirement. Thus, whether a Guyanese resides in the USA, UK, Canada, Suriname, French Guiana, Barbados, Antigua or elsewhere, he or she is entitled to vote,” Ramkarran writes, in his weekly column in the Weekend Mirror, February 6 to 7 edition. He adds: “The Elections Commission, which has the constitutional responsibility of ensuring that elections are lawfully conducted, has a duty and responsibility to ensure that constitutional provisions are observed by providing Guyanese, wherever they may be, of the opportunity to vote at elections.”
Ramkarran acknowledges that the issue is “exceptionally emotive,” noting that overseas voting was “infamously abused” in the elections of 1968 and 1973, before being restricted in 1980 and abolished in 1985. “It was a major device for the rigging of elections with the objective of establishing one party, authoritarian rule. It helped to destroy Guyana’s economy and its good name. We sank into international shame and disrepute,” he says, “But the fact is Guyanese residing abroad have a right to vote under the Constitution.”
He explains that while there was a powerful struggle led by the PPP from 1968 onwards to “abolish” the overseas vote, no call was made for its constitutional abolition. “The argument centred on the rigging of the overseas vote and dismantlement of the entire structure,” he says, “During this period the constitutional right was never raised or challenged.”
According to Ramkarran, the issue is not debatable, since it was the intention of the drafters of the Indepen-dence Constitution and the legislature that passed it, “that Guyanese wherever they may be” should have the right to vote. In this vein, he points out that it was also the intention of the drafters of the Burnham Constitution and the legislature–albeit fraudulently elected–that passed it, that the right should remain. Similarly, no recommendation was made to change the provision by the Constitution Reform Commission. Ramkarran, who chaired the commission, adds that the issue was never raised. Therefore, he says, it would be correct to assume that all stakeholders supported the rights of overseas Guyanese to vote.
Arguing for the restoration of the overseas vote, Ramkarran says that with elections constitutionally due before the beginning of December, 2011, the Elections Commission has “ample time and opportunity” to set in place the procedures to register the names of Guyanese desirous of exercising their right to vote and of providing a system to enable the them to access ballot papers and cast their ballots.
The first of the requirements to enable voting, he explains, is facilitating the registration of non-resident Guyanese. He explains that there has been no form of independent and separate electoral registration in Guyana, since Independence. While the National Registration Act was passed around 1967 to provide for national registration, and for issuing ID cards, he notes that it had nothing to do with elections. At that time, the Elections Commission had responsibility for the electoral role. However, he says it never discharged the role during the era of election rigging. Near to election time a law was passed authorising extraction of the electoral roll from the national register and this was deemed the preliminary voters list, which was put up for claims and objections.
According to Ramkarran, overseas Guyanese could not register under national registration and had no opportunity of registering under claims and objections unless they were in Guyana and had a Guyana address. Further, they would have to return to Guyana on Election Day to vote. He says the Elections Commission has now taken over responsibility for registration under the National Registration Act but “the same flawed constitutional procedure” continues to apply for the creation of the electoral roll, depriving overseas citizens the right to vote. “The actual process of establishing the mechanism to vote can be addressed when the constitutional obligations of the Elections Commission are fulfilled by establishing registration procedures for overseas Guyanese to register to vote in the coming elections,” he argues.
