Presidential candidate of the PPP/C, Donald Ramotar, said that his party is ready to face the polls and expressed confidence in the Guyana Elections Commission for ensuring that all of its outstanding issues, as identified by the ruling party and the Opposition, will be worked out without unduly delaying the polls. Further, he does not expect that elections will be pushed back for any significant period of time so that GECOM could do the necessary work to ensure that people are registered.
He was speaking at Freedom House at a press conference yesterday, at which he addressed issues related to GECOM and the conduct of elections.
“The PPP/C is ready to face the polls. Our electoral structures at both the leadership level and in the communities have been established to face the challenges,” Ramotar said.
“The party is confident that we will be successful in the upcoming elections. We have a proven record to stand on,” he said.
Ramotar noted that since the PPP/C assumed the administration of Guyana, the country has made great strides in every aspect of life. “At the economic level, we have moved Guyana from being the basket case in 1992 to being the most dynamic economy in the region today,” he said.
He said at the social level, Guyana has progressed tremendously. “Our housing programme is exemplary; in education we are building a nation where our young people will have access to quality education and where all will be able to use the most modern tools available today,” he said.
Ramotar said health services have come a long way as more and more facilities are made available to people.
He noted that on the political stage, Guyana is now one of the most democratic nations in the world. “All of the fundamental freedoms and human rights are protected,” he said. “It is the political democracy that we have established, the freedoms that we have established, that have laid the foundations for the growth that we have had since the PPP/C has been in office,” Ramotar said. “We have always argued that there is a direct correlation between democracy and social and economic progress, and I think that we have proved our argument,” he said.
He said the party is now working on its manifesto for the upcoming elections, and when it is ready, the party will make it public. “[The manifesto] promises to be exciting and will take Guyana to a qualitatively higher level,” he said.
Further, the PPP General Secretary said the party is heartened by the growing amount of support being expressed by civil society for the party at the upcoming elections. “We look forward to working with all to realise Guyana’s full potential,” he said.
On the Guyana Elections Commission, Ramotar said this body has done “a great job” in conducting elections in Guyana. He said the stage was set by the Collins Commission in 1992, and was steadily built on by the Doodnauth Singh, Joe Singh and the Surujbally Commissions.
“All of the elections held from that time were certified free and fair by both national and international observer teams. The elections in 1997 and 2001 also passed the forensic audits with flying colours. Over the years, the Guyanese public has become more confident in the Commission because of the good work it has done in helping people to be registered and facilitating the public in exercising its franchise,” he said.
“It is in keeping with this high standard that, in this period, GECOM seems to be pursuing perfection. In these elections it began to call for source documents as a basis for registration. What the Commission did not anticipate was the large [number] of people who were not in possession of these documents. It appears also that it did not consider the problem of bureaucracy,” said Ramotar.
“As a result, we have come to a point where many people, mainly in the interior, but also on the coast,  could not be registered because they were not able to get their documents, and in some cases, they received their birth certificates after the period of claims was over,” Ramotar said.
He said on Thursday the party had a review with its main organisers around the country. “What we have found is similar to what the Opposition parties have reported…Part of the problem too was that many people waited for the last minute to conduct their business.
“This was seen by the fact that in the month of Claims and Objections, almost 17,000 persons were registered,” he said.
He noted that the PPP has written GECOM on the issue. “We hope that the Commission, as it has done in the past, will be able to facilitate eligible persons to be registered,” he said.
In response to critics of his suitability to be president, Ramotar said that, as General Secretary of the party since 1997, he has been engaged in all kinds of activities. “You must also realise that it was the PPP/C that was elected to the government and I have been the General Secretary of the party from 1997 to now. Therefore I have had to deal with several of the problems that you would have mentioned. So I am not too overtly concerned about the comments that I see from time to time questioning my experience in that regard,” he said.
“I have a direct and legitimate interest in the government, being General Secretary of the ruling party,” he said.