Dear Editor,
Yesterday, January 12, 2022, I withdrew from a meeting of the Elections Commission in the face of a new low by the government nominees on the Guyana Elections Commission.
At Tuesday`s meeting there was an inconclusive discussion on the termination of the services of Duarte Hetsberger, Personal Assistant to the former Chief Election Officer. Lo and behold Commissioners Shadick and Gunraj are reported in the media in a manner that maliciously maligns yet another GECOM staff.
The PPP and their cronies have no moral legs to stand on in pointing such fingers. It is this said Party that held on to a parliamentary seat in 2006 after the Commission had conceded that Boodoo had wrongly allocated a seat in Linden to the PPP although it was won by the AFC. To wit Boodoo remained in situ with their support.
It is the same PPP that treated Boodoo`s subsequent attempt to deny the AFC a seat in 2011 as a “mistake” that was corrected and proceeded to ensure his continuity as Chief Election Officer until his contract expired.
These are two clear and irrefutable instances of the PPP and their Commissioners facilitating electoral malfeasance yet they feel that they can impugn the reputation of GECOM employees on the basis of so called allegations. These Com-missioners are clearly pursuing the declared vendetta to degut GECOM of anyone who is perceived not to be loyal to the PPP.
When proposals are made to improve the systems at GECOM, a damp squib is their response. In the specific area of record keeping, in which they have been unresponsive, they are seeking to cast aspersions on an employee using vague terms such as “suspicion” to vilify the employee.
The proposed amendments to the Representation of the People Act are of the same odour; the pursuit of agendas rather than the rectification of GECOM`s deficiencies.
Yesterday, I found it difficult to sit in civility among those who exhibit quite the opposite in their treatment of GECOM`s staff even as they promote someone who was previously employed by contrived means rather than merit. Vilification and duplicity are their order of the day.
Having seen the referenced article published online by News Room, Commissioners Corbin and Trotman (who also abandoned the meeting on similar grounds) fully endorse this registration of disgust and the indisputable factual sentiments expressed here.
Yours faithfully,
Commissioners:
Vincent Alexander
Charles Corbin
Desmond Trotman
