Dear Editor,
Mr. Vincent Alexander is one of the three APNU+AFC presently serving on the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM). He has since been selected by his party to serve on the Constitutional Reform Commission. He will soon be able to flutter between the two bodies and to pick on the meat of their deliberations with which he may have disagreement. In the case of GECOM, whenever Mr. Alexander finds himself disagreeing with decisions inside GECOM, he transports his grievance into the public domain. Further, in the context of his recent foray in the press this time around, in a letter under the heading: ‘The names of the dead must be removed from the OLE’ published in the March 9th, 2024 edition of S/N, Mr. Alexander launched an attack directed at the secretariat of GECOM. In so doing, he holds to the assertion that; ‘the voters list will soon exceed the resident population of Guyana which is approximated to be in the vicinity of 780,000’.
As if in a state of bewilderment, Mr. Alexander tries to understand how come non-resident Guyanese, regardless of their support for APNU+AFC or PPP/C, are so committed to upholding their right to vote that they would purchase a plane ticket to fly to Guyana to determine who should be elected to administer the affairs of the country. Mr. Alexander proceeds to engage in a process of self-introspection and self-interrogation by asking and answering his own question at the same time; ‘the voter list exceeds the resident voting population by no less than 126,439. How is this possible?’ he asks; then in eureka-like fashion, he proclaims; ‘This is possible because non-resident Guyanese are also included on the voters list.’
For reasons known only to Mr. Alexander, he rejects any consideration to the continuous growth of the population within recent years due to remigration particularly from Venezuela and the USA. Moreover, he produced no concrete evidence to support his claim that the current population is within the vicinity of 780,000. Having served in the commission for a number of years, Mr. Alexander must know that the Voters’ List is not compiled on the basis of “resident Guyanese”. The list is compiled on the basis of the eligibility criteria. This means that every person who is listed in the National Register of Registrants (NRR) and would have been 18 years old or over by December 31, 2023 is qualified for inclusion in the current Official List of Electors (OLE).
And as though Mr. Alexander’s protestations are not enough he continues to harp on; ‘the implementation of electronic fingerprint identification at the place of poll,’ claiming that; ‘Such a system would not have names taken off of the voters list, hence complying with the Judge`s ruling.’ But it is disingenuous for Alexander to make such an outlandish statement when he is fully aware that discussions regarding the introduction of electronic fingerprint identification is ongoing at the level of the Commission, suffice it to say, the Commission has not received a single technical proposal on the matter bearing in mind that the introduction of such a system will require legislative changes.
Mr. Alexander claimed that ‘the Judge`s ruling does not address the fact that thousands of registered Guyanese die overseas every year, yet there is no mechanism to have their names removed from the voters` list.’ The fact remains that to-date, nothing of evidential value was ever presented to the commission purporting to show that, post 1992 elections, persons residing in Guyana voted for electors who may have died overseas, and whose name may still, legitimately, be on the voters the list. As a matter of fact, previous electoral experiences have demonstrated that GECOM has a regime in place to guard against voter impersonation and those measures have worked well and will continue to do so, so long as efforts are not made to deliberately create mischief even at this early stage, in order to discredit preparations for, or the holding of free and fair elections.
The APNU Commissioner makes a hue and cry about ‘GECOM’s refusal to address ‘its mind to this obvious defect in its system’, claiming that his proposal ‘fell on deaf ears, as GECOM merrily prepares for elections that are due, no later than 2025.’ But the Commissioner doesn’t stop there, he goes on to make the reckless and unfounded assertion that, ‘There are those in GECOM and the political circles who are complicit in not rectifying the flawed system, while probably participating in, or condoning, its exploitation.’
Just in case the commissioner has forgotten, he should be reminded that the Attorney General prepared and circulated a number of proposed amendments to the National Registration Act and Representation of the People Act for perusal and comment. Public consultations were held on the proposed amendments, including with the Guyana Elections Commission. None of the Opposition Commissioners made inputs in the process. The Amendments were passed by the National Assembly and assented to by the President in December 2022. Mr. Alexander must know that GECOM is not constitutionally empowered to make its own electoral laws nor to whimsically implement any act contrary to the Representation of the People Act. However, now that he has been nominated by his party to serve on the soon to be established constitutional commission he will have the opportunity to push his ideas for electoral reform.
Sincerely,
Clement J. Rohee
Commissioner
