KINDLY allow me a space in your newspaper to respond to Mr. Raphael Trotman, former member of the People’s National Congress and now the leader of the Alliance for Change whose letter in the Kaieteur Newspaper and to GECOM’s Commissioners is one of total disrespect for the Guyanese populace. The AFC and its associates are fully aware that the AFC is a sister of the PNC and both AFC and PNC will perform all sorts of nefarious acts to deny the thousands of eligible persons their democratic right to have their names on the Preliminary Voters List (PVL).
Since before and after the 2008 house to house registration, hundreds of persons across Region 2 had applied to the General Register Office for birth certificates especially in the Amerindian Communities and who had voted in the 2006 national elections and are in possession of the old identification cards but they do not have the required source documents that GECOM is calling for during the Claims and Objections period.
The AFC and the other political parties who are masquerading for power should call on the authorities to go into the various regions for the issuing of birth certificates and not to malinger on time to disenfranchise the thousands of Guyanese who wanted to vote for the party of their choice.
Moreso, the AFC and the APNU, who are the same wine in new bottles, know very well that GECOM has a responsibility to put systems in place to ensure that those persons who had voted in previous elections and who have attained the age of voting should be on the Preliminary Voters Lists.
It is shocking to know and hear the AFC leader Mr. Trotman saying that all contesting parties are to be placed on a level playing field by the commission. Mr. Trotman, would it be a perfect playing field for the thousands of voters who had voted in previous elections and who will not be allowed to vote, to deprive them of their constitutional right not through their negligence-is that a level playing field?
Mr. Trotman, you as a former PNC activist with your political background, your knowledge may not be same as mine but you should recall and not forget that in 1978 the PNC postponed the General Elections and held a referendum and changed the Guyana Constitution when 70% of the voters stayed away and the PNC took 97% of the votes; and also you must not forget that general elections were due in 1990 and the PNC postponed it to 1992 when the PPP/C brought democracy to this nation.
Mr. Trotman you and the political parties want to deprive thousands of Guyanese of their democratic right by preventing them from casting their votes in a similar situation as in the 1968 general election when the PNC implemented overseas and proxy voting preventing PPP supporters from voting.