Dear Editor,
In its Thursday, January 9, edition, Stabroek News published a story informing that; “The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is currently on the ground working with GECOM with respect to voter and civic education and raising voter awareness.”
A voter and civic education and awareness programme is important for greater citizen participation in both the pre and post electoral process.
In this respect, USAID’s assistance is a timely intervention that should be welcomed. It is hoped that USAID’s assistance has taken both the pre and post electoral processes into consideration.
Though in a totally different shape and form, electoral assistance from the Commonwealth countries currently on board at GECOM is also welcomed and is equally critical.
In the pre-electoral period, voter education and citizen’s awareness are extremely important and those who are tasked with the responsibility of implementing such awareness programmes must be objective.
The claim by some letter writers that the plague of vandalism and hooliganism is on both houses without providing any evidence to support their claim is totally unhelpful.
Thus far, the opposition PPP/C has provided evidence on Facebook and in documented form to the Commissioner of Police giving examples where vandals have destroyed party paraphernalia.
PPP/C activists who have been going about their legitimate activities consistent with standard elections campaigning practices were harassed, attacked and in some cases, physically abused.
Observers should refrain from being one-sided or engaging in the blame game totally or, conveniently oblivious to the facts or evidence provided.
Elections watchers are yet to be provided with a scintilla of evidence showing where and when the PPP/C or any other opposition party activists have been engaged in vandalism and hooliganism since the elections campaign season began.
Experience has shown that one-sided reporting and/or letter writing on such matters can escalate in the pre-elections period and can lay the basis for confrontation in a post-election scenario.
Mobilizing and encouraging electors to come out to vote, why they must vote, how to come to grips with election results, how elections can contribute to national reconciliation and help national development are critical to the enhancement and building of confidence in the democratic process.
GECOM’s role as the implementing agency for this project should be monitored by stakeholders. This is important since GECOM does not contest elections but is vested with the responsibility for the ‘exercise of general direction and supervision over the registration of electors and the administrative conduct of elections of members of the National Assembly.’
It is to be recalled that at previous elections, GECOM appointed and posted a number of ‘Information Clerks’ at polling stations whose task was to help guide voters where to go to cast their vote.
Reports received from a number of polling stations indicated that many persons whose names appeared on the voters’ list were misdirected by the ‘Information Clerks’ and sent to another polling station, only to be sent to yet another polling station where they ended up leaving for home with a deep sense of anger and frustration having been denied the right to vote due either to incompetence, passive resistance or plain mischief by what became known as GECOM’s ‘Mis-information Clerks’.
Voter education programmes should go beyond simple voter information requirements.
Emphasis should be placed on the difference between voter education and active political campaigning and propaganda. What is expected of the electorate in the post-election situation is of critical importance.
In the past, Overseas Observers had recommended that persons in charge of implementing voter education programmes should not pretend that fear, distrust, suspicion and intimidatory tactics do not exist but be addressed frontally.
In another scenario, it was recommended that a voter education process be advanced in three phases; First, to create awareness at the national level; Second, at the regional level and Thirdly at the level of community leaders.
Any voter education and civic awareness programme that does not take into consideration the post-elections scenario, will end up in shambles.
The success of a voter and civic education programme lies in its successful implementation in the pre-elections, the actual election and in the post-election periods.
It is in this context, that the caretaker government and GECOM must be strongly criticized for keeping the Guyanese public in the dark insofar as the agreed GECOM/USAID voter and civic education programme is concerned.
Rhetoric from the Ministry of the Presidency about the caretaker government’s commitment to holding free and fair elections is meaningless and will not suffice.
The caretaker government and/or GECOM must provide full disclosure to the Guyanese electorate concerning the USAID/GOG voter and civic education programme.
Yours faithfully,
Clement J. Rohee
