The incumbent PPP/C yesterday expressed dissatisfaction with the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM)’s voter education programme ahead of the November 28 polls, and urged that the body improve on its efforts especially in targeting first time voters.
However, a GECOM source indicated that the Commission has had its voter education campaign severely hampered by the late release of funds by the government and that it is trying its best in the circumstances.
PPP/C’s campaign spokesperson Robert Persaud first raised the issue yesterday morning at a party briefing at Freedom House. “We are dissatisfied with GECOM’s efforts in the area of voter’s education,” Persaud said. “We know we have a very young voter roll this time. We have persons below 40 years… close to 56% of the total electorate,” he added. Of this percentage about 21 to 22% are 25 and under Persaud indicated.
“I want to make a special appeal to GECOM to enhance, to accelerate, to expand its voters education programme,” he said. He also appealed to young voters, especially the first time voters to take time off to educate themselves about the process. The PPP/C, meanwhile, has produced “dummy ballots” to help in the education of its supporters, Persaud indicated.
However, a GECOM source indicated that its voter education programme had been significantly hampered by the government’s late release of funds. The source pointed out that GECOM had submitted a comprehensive work plan—which included a detailed voter education outline- to the relevant authorities some time ago. GECOM’s intention was to heighten its voter education programme from Nomination Day onwards. However, according to the source, Cabinet only released the funds two weeks ago after GECOM’s Chairman Dr Steve Surujbally directly engaged
Cabinet Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon on the matter. The source said that without the money it was hard to get ads in the media, since GECOM still owes media houses money for advertisements done in 2010.
With the money finally released, the source said that GECOM has started to “double” its voter education efforts. The source indicated that 90 second infomercials will now be aired twice daily on each television station and on the radio station while advertisements will be placed in all four daily newspapers twice weekly on a weekday and Sundays. The infomercials, the source said, are very detailed and address several issues relating to casting one’s ballot.
The source said too that inspite of the shortage of funds, the Commission has been distributing its brochures in all the regions in Guyana and engaging in other forms of voter education. In the next few days, it will be going around in communities using the PA systems with the aim of targeting grass root people.
The three other political parties contesting the polls, when contacted by this newspaper, also expressed concern with GECOM’s efforts at voter education.
APNU’s Lance Carberry, when contacted by this newspaper, indicated that the opposition coalition was not satisfied with the voter education programme adding that GECOM needed to specifically target first time voters in its campaign. “GECOM needs to show them visibly how to vote,” he said, saying that he had viewed one of GECOM’s television commercials, which didn’t adequately do this. He stressed that such education was very important if the Commission wanted to limit the number of spoilt votes. “They should be splashing the television screens with animated expression on how to vote,” Carberry added.
APNU, Carberry said, had raised the matter with GECOM previously and it was told that it didn’t have money and that funds were subsequently released at a very late stage. The APNU member said that if this was indeed the case, the government should be called out on this since it has the responsibility of funding the activities of the Commission.
Meanwhile, APNU has taken on the responsibility of educating its own supporters about voting, “We obviously have to have a programme of our own trying to educate our supports how to vote,” Carberry said, although he emphasized that GECOM has the “all encompassing” role of voter education.
When contacted, David Patterson of the AFC said that his party was very concerned about the extent to which the voter education has been conducted to date, while suggesting that much more needs to be done. He too stressed that voter education is an important issue since there are many young voters.
Patterson said that there remains a lot of uncertainty among certain voters particularly persons living in areas where there are “geo-split lists”. He indicated that in many cases, persons go to one polling station and when they don’t find their names on the list they “automatically panic” and run to the parties. GECOM, Patterson opined, should be prepared to deal with such issues. The AFC, Patterson said, will be writing to GECOM outlining its concerns on the issue.
Prime Ministerial candidate for the United Force (TUF) Marissa Nadir said that the party was not so concerned about GECOM’s education campaign as it was concerned about “the electoral set up”. Regarding voter education, Nadir said that the party has been distributing brochures that it would have acquired from GECOM to persons in its constituency and has been explaining to them how to vote. “We haven’t been extremely dependent on GECOM for this,” she said, adding that the party has distributed over 6,000 of these brochures.
