The Speaker of the National Assembly Mr Ralph Ramkarran in his column in the Weekend Mirror and on his blog www.conversationtree.gy created quite a stir by arguing that the constitution presently provides for Guyanese of the age of majority in every nook and cranny worldwide to cast a ballot at national elections and that the Guyana Elections Commission should therefore discharge its constitutional duty.

Noting that such a right was not unique, Mr Ramkarran cited the extant provisions in the US constitution and referenced a report quoting the Indian Prime Minister Mr Manmohan Singh as saying that overseas Indians might be accorded voting rights as early as the next general elections in 2014.

Mr Ramkarran further pointed out that the drafters of the Independence constitution intended that Guyanese wherever they may be should be entitled to cast a ballot and that this was preserved by the Burnham constitution and the one emanating from the labour of the Constitution Reform Commission of 2000.

In a letter in the Stabroek News of February 13 in response to criticisms by PNCR-1G leader, Mr Robert Corbin and others of his contention, Mr Ramkarran expanded on the jeopardy of not adhering to the constitutionally enshrined right. He referred to the PNCR challenge through Esther Perreira to the results of the 1997 elections where the previously agreed national ID cards were opportunistically adduced as grounds to have the results declared null and void. Impliedly, any future election result could therefore be challenged on the grounds that the process failed to cater for Guyanese who are not domiciled here.

The average Guyanese could be forgiven for bewilderment at this turn of events and the reason behind the ferment. Mr Ramkarran has pointed out that he had proposed while he and Mr Corbin were members of the elections commission in 2001 that “we should ask for an amendment to the constitution to provide for only residents of Guyana to have the right to vote. He did not take me up on the offer”. One feels instantly that this was a missed opportunity by all sides to settle this matter beyond reasonable doubt. It certainly should have been addressed in time for the 2006 elections which still leaves unanswered why the conundrum has resurfaced at this point.

The diaspora remains an integral and inseparable part of the Guyanese nation that is being moulded and burnished in the quest for the common dream of all its countrymen and women. However, conferring explicitly upon them the right to vote or ignoring the inherent right in the constitution is rife with problems. Perhaps the drafters of the independence constitution had no conception that Guyana 44 years on would be a nation rent by internecine divisions and scarred by the exodus of hundreds of thousands of its citizens seeking a better life and which persons can now lay claim to a right to vote. And those who conceived of the Burnham constitution were likely wedded to the usefulness of the overseas vote in the rigging of elections as was so grotesquely evident in 1968 and 1973. Why the provision was not expunged or explicitly prohibited in the 2000 reform process may have something to do with the latent but deep-seated interest by the PPP and other stakeholders in the attractions of the Burnham constitution.

While there are many examples of countries permitting their émigrés to vote, a lasting counterpoint has been the definition of what the minimum engagement with the homeland should be before the hallowed right to vote preference should be conferred.

Supposing John X or Devi Y had left these shores 30 years ago and not retained any contact or interest, should they be allowed to influence an upcoming vote because of some particular narrow interest? How would one establish which Guyanese retained residual links that were strong enough to entitle them to a vote? Otherwise the mortar of nationhood is readily eroded in the hands of many who longer have vested interests and are only marginally moved by events in the homeland.

That is not to say that Guyanese living here are necessarily more fully engaged with Guyana and its pains and joys than those in the diaspora. Quite to the contrary it is clear from independence onwards that many in the diaspora are more deeply engaged, are more deeply torn about having to part with their homeland and are more deeply involved in the debate to steer the ship of state into calmer waters than fellow countrymen here. So there is a natural inclination to recognize this in the form of a right to vote. However, the foremost and fundamental qualification should be presence on the land itself and the willingness to submit to the procedures that would permit the compilation of an unimpeachable list of electors.

That apart and perhaps more telling is the impracticality of registering Guyanese living abroad. Mr Ramkarran rather blithely interjects that “While elections can be held at anytime, they are constitutionally due before the beginning of December, 2011. The Elections Commission, therefore, 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 of enabling them to access ballot papers and casting their ballots”.

Any watcher of elections here would seriously question Mr Ramkarran’s judgement on this matter. The last 18 years have illuminated how inefficient we are in registering even those Guyanese living here. The political machinations, bickering and bureaucratic incompetence have led to endless controversy over the quality of registers, the procedures for distribution of materiel and the transmission and declaration of results. Can one even begin to envisage the gargantuan task and cost that would beset this country were it to consider embarking upon this quest for the overseas vote?

With Guyanese traditionally spread so far and wide what would be the arrangements for verifying the claim to being Guyanese by those from Reykjavik to Nouakchott to Zamboanga? How does one get them to cast ballots that can be credibly counted and added to the national pool? By what mechanism could they possibly challenge the result and is there a possibility that electors outside of Guyana outstrip those resident here and can effectively decide who the President should be while not even living here? It boggles the mind.

It is apparent that we could not be headed in that direction now. To ease this controversy, Mr Ramkarran’s original suggestion of a constitutional amendment should be eminently considered along with a rectification of the anomaly created by the use of the national registration process to spawn a preliminary list of electors.  These should help to forestall any wrongheaded challenge to properly conducted free and fair elections.