Dear Editor,
The United Kingdom held its elections on Jul 5 for a 650 seat parliament and by late evening we knew the results. The incumbent quickly conceded defeat, congratulated the victor, and wished him well. India also held elections in April thru June in seven phases involving some 970 million voters of whom over 600 million cast ballots; India uses machines for voting with special electors (diplomats, disabled, etc.) being given paper ballots. After the vote counting began on June 4, within hours the results were known. And the opposition accepted the outcome and moved on. In American elections, the results are known by midnight.
In Guyana, all elections held post-independence took days and weeks for a declaration. The last election for our 65 member unicameral parliament in March 2020 took five months to know the official results. Before independence, the results of elections (1953, 1957, 1961, 1964) were quickly known within hours; the colonial authorities managed elections efficiently and expeditiously. We have not done so since they handed over control over the territory to locals; our elections have been beset with fraud, skullduggery and other aspects of rigging. Clearly, elections in other countries are handled more efficiently than in Guyana; various factors mitigated against a quick declaration.
Something has to be done to have our elections conducted more efficiently without the kind of questions and issues to delay the declarations. One handicap is political control over the election body; both opposition and government have equal representation in the commission. How about an independent election commission with no political affiliation as in USA, UK, India, and other truly democratic countries?
Sincerely,
Vishnu Bisram
