Dear Editor,
The political opposition and its representatives at GECOM are making the following demands for the holding of elections in Guyana:
1. That the Official List of Electors (OLE) to be extracted from GECOM’s National Register of Registrants Data Base (NRRDB) and the said NRRDB must be scrapped because any list derived therefrom will be ‘bloated;
2. That biometrics be introduced as an additional restriction to vote apart from being registered, and in possession of a voter ID card;
3. That the sitting Chair of GECOM ‘must go’ because to the APNU+AFC, she is not impartial and independent.
The three demands are interrelated, though undergirding them is a sinister strategy. The APNU+AFC seems to be calculating that, in the event they get a sliver of movement on their demands, chances are they will recover lost ground electorally. In respect to the APNU+AFC’s demands at numbers one and two, we are reminded of the Chief Justice’s August 14, 2019 ruling to the effect that one could not retire the National Register of Registrrants Database (NRRDB), but could only make additions, and that any changes to the contrary would require passage of constitutional and/or legislative amendments.
The Coalition knows that since the events of March to August 202O, their numbers are dwindling. On top of that, their track record at previous elections, especially the 2020 election, makes any chance of them improving their electoral fortunes highly improbable, thus the ultimate alternative they may be banking on is to hatch issues of a constitutional nature. At this point in time, GECOM is not favourably disposed to the conduct of a fresh house-to-house registration exercise. GECOM is bound by the constitution and by electoral laws. Unless, the constitution is amended and new laws promulgated, the APNU+AFC’s demands should be considered dead in the water.
But it is its third demand that is the most troubling for the APNU+AFC; to them, it poses a Herculean, if not daunting task. In the light of our experiences during the March-August 2020 period, GECOM should not at any time be party to any recommendation that implicitly or explicitly violates the letter and spirit of the constitution nor should the body be party to any illegal act that impugns GECOM’s constitutional mandate to conduct and supervise an election that people expect to be free and fair. In respect to the office of the sitting Chair of GECOM, the general expectation on the part of the populace is that it will demonstrate impartiality and fairness at all times.
But it is precisely the Chair’s adherence to these principles that is the bee the APNU+AFC’s bonnet, to the extent that they have misrepresented the Chair’s position time and again both internally and publicly. The most recent misrepresentation of the Chair’s decisions was reflected in Commissioner Vincent Alexander’s letter to the press in which he wrongly claimed that the Chair refused a request from the APNU+AFC for an extension of the Claims and Objections period as it relates to adding or subtracting names from the Official List of Electors (OLE). The fact of the matter is that the Chair ruled that she would send copies of the correspondence from the APNU+AFC to the parliamentary political parties requesting their position as regards the APNU+AFC’s request for an extension. The PPP/C has since responded to GECOM signaling its support for a one week extension of the Claims and Objections period.
If the PNC is of the view, that by targeting GECOM’s Chair and mounting an unconvincing campaign for free and fair elections, they will succeed in duping the electorate, they should rethink their elections strategy. Indications are that the PPP/C is making inroads in traditional PNC strongholds. On top of that, as the small and big ticket projects in the PPP/C’s manifesto continue to be rolled out uninterruptedly, the PNC will certainly be forced to concede defeat once again following the impending local government elections. And just as it was predicted that the APNU/AFC would be a one term government, in the same way, it would not be reckless to conclude that the coalition will be hard pressed to make people forget about the electoral travesties committed between March to August 2020 and allowing them to breeze into government once again.
The past electoral machinations of the APNU+AFC cast a long shadow over their current demands. They have taken aim at GECOM’s NRRDB and its sitting Chair who they desperately want to get rid of, but was it not the same mythical ‘bloated list’ that ushered them into office in 2015 and with which they themselves held local government elections in 2016 and 2018?
Sincerely,
Clement J. Rohee