Declaring that the time had come to break his silence, elections commissioner Vincent Alexander today said that the near erroneous declaration in 2011 of a parliamentary majority for the PPP/C was not a mistake but a result of the changing of the formula by Chief Election Officer, Gocool Boodoo.
In a letter in today’s Stabroek News, Alexander said:
“Every day, there is someone referring to Boodoo’s action, in his preparation of the results of the 2011 elections, as a mistake. There was no mistake. Mr Boodoo was singularly responsible for converting the vote count into seats. This was not his first exposure to the task. It was his third. There is only one formula for converting the votes into seats. How could it be a mistake if a factor in the formula is changed? There was no error of calculation. Sixty-five (65) replaced forty (40) in the formula. Let it be known that no calculations were presented to the Commission for scrutiny. Signed declarations were presented. There was nothing for the naked eye to discern. It was my academic knowledge of the system and my constant explanation of the system to students that equipped me to discern the false declaration (result). When challenged, Mr Boodoo responded that he was right and was presenting the correct results.
“It required a sustained exchange; reference to the legal provisions that provide for the formula; and my insistence that he had used an incorrect formula that caused Mr Boodoo to resort to the correct and only available formula to recalculate the allocation of seats. It should be noted that he had already used the same formulation to correctly calculate the allocation of seats for the ten constituencies (regions). This was the straw that broke the camel’s back since it had been a pattern of Mr Boodoo to treat the Commissioners with contempt with regard to the truth. Enough was enough and is enough. Let the truth be told and I challenge anyone to refute the story that I now tell. My decency and professional cloak influenced my public silence, which has been exploited to drown out the truth and perpetuate falsehood. Enough is enough. I am now cloaked in good governance and guided by openness and transparency. Let the truth be told. There was no mistake. There was no error.”
The letter by Alexander, who was nominated by the opposition to the Commission, is likely to spark further controversy in the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) which had been deliberating on whether to renew Boodoo’s contract.
Thus far GECOM has publicly excused the near erroneous declaration of a parliamentary majority for the PPP/C as an honest mistake by Boodoo. Alexander’s letter comprehensively rejects that. Boodoo himself has said nothing on this matter but on May 7, 2012, Chairman of GECOM, Dr Steve Surujbally had said that he had accepted that the incorrect declaration that was about to be made by Boodoo was nothing but a human error until he sees proof to the contrary.
“What is of such great import is that the system worked… the system worked. The law is that the Chief Elections Officer would bring the calculation, bring his report to the commission and the commission would bless it or not,” Surujbally had told Stabroek News then.
“The moment it was given, the commissioners realised something was wrong and one commissioner, who is an author of the methodology, raised his hand and said could we go through this step by step, and of course I acquiesced immediately and we went through it and realised that the calculation was wrong,” he had said.
“As to whether it was a mistake or whatever, I cannot give you anything on that,” said Surujbally. “We know that the system works because we had been able to ensure that something that was incorrect could not go forward,” he added.
Alexander in today’s letter also referred to another calculation error in 2006 which prevented the Alliance For Change from occupying a Region 10 seat in parliament. Though the number of seats allocated to each party would not have been affected, it allowed the PPP/C to have Prime Minster Sam Hinds represent Region 10 in parliament. It would have been hugely politically significant if the AFC which was contesting the elections for the first time had been able to secure one of the Region 10 seats.
Alexander lamented that the 2006 mistake had been drawn to Boodoo’s attention but not corrected.
“In 2006, the mistake was brought to Mr Boodoo and the Commissioners’ attention at a time when it could have been corrected ‒ ask the AFC. In fact, correction was promised but alas the knell tolled and GECOM piously said, `let them seek redress in court.’ A court which dismissed the just case on technical grounds. 2011 was an attempt to once again deprive the AFC of a seat. An attempt to beat up on the small party in deference to the PPP/C. Let the truth be told”, Alexander said.
An official declaration of a PPP/C majority in 2011 would have required an approach to the courts and there would have been no guarantee of a reversal of the erroneous pronouncement.