Dear Editor,
It was very gracious of Mr. Clement Rohee, a notable international statesman and a political official, on March 30, 2019 in a letter to Stabroek News `Those who claim that the PPP was/is ‘not a model of electoral purity’ must provide incontrovertible evidence to justify their case’ to comment on my letter of March 26, 2019 `The PPP was not a model of electoral purity’. I am glad that he finds me a figure of fun. On the other hand, I take his comments very seriously. Looking at my dossier, he made a reference to my date of birth, which is now, thanks to him, public information. Reading his comments, I am inclined to think that his date of birth must be close to mine.
As I understand it, Mr. Rohee confirms the fact that the by-election, due as a result of the Court’s ruling on the Houston constituency in the 1961 General Elections, was never held. However, Mr. Rohee says that it was not the PPP’s responsibility, but that of the Chief Secretary. It seems therefore that PPP ministers took the oath to uphold the Constitution that included the right to vote, but had no power to defend it and insist that the by-election be held. Yet, in the same period and earlier, at the height of the Cold War, the PPP was able to trade with Cuba and other countries in what was then the socialist bloc. There seems to be something unreasonable in the way responsibilities were allocated.
Dr. Jagan, the head of the Government, had written long before Mr. Rohee that the 1967 Government he headed was really a coalition between the PPP and the Colonial Office. If after 1961 the ruling party could not insist on arrangements for a by-election being made a priority, we can conclude that it was not a priority for them, especially as they exercised international responsibilities that were much more jealously guarded by the imperial powers.
In my letter, I mentioned statements by Dr. Jagan and Mr. Burnham about voter registration for the 1953 elections when the legal voting age was 21 years. I did this, as I said, to show the light-hearted approach to electoral rules and suggested that it had its origin in England and the USA where our leaders were educated. Mr. Rohee spent some time explaining the PNC leader’s approach in later years to the vote at 18. In fact, mainly for reasons of race, the PNC opposed the vote at 18 at one stage and later implemented it, just as the PPP, also for reasons of race, at one stage opposed Proportional Representation and then at another stage accepted it.
I note in closing that Mr. Rohee did not express an opinion on my argument that residents of the Houston constituency had been denied for several years the right to vote, the right to representation and the defence against ‘taxation without representation.’
Many will see Mr. Rohee’s explanation for the absence of a by-election in the Houston constituency as similar in quality to the arguments of those in the present controversy who have claimed that elections cannot be held without the completion of certain procedures.
Yours faithfully,
Eusi Kwayana
