…We are the people who know how to market elections and elections content, says Chairman Dr. Surujbally
THE Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) is pleased that it has provided and continues to provide sufficient voter education, despite concerns expressed by political parties contesting the Regional and General Elections in 10 days.
GECOM Chairman, Dr Steve Surujbally, told reporters at a media conference yesterday at the Commission’s High Street office that their work on voter education began since March last.
“We have collaborated with the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company to bring the information about the election process. If you look at our GT&T directory…from pages 150-158; nine pages are there and I don’t understand how you could say it’s only just now we’ve started We started this in March of this year in collaboration with GT&T,” Dr Surujbally informed.
According to him, GECOM’S civic and voter education strategic plan was shared with political parties, and as such, he finds it unbelievable that the parties could now criticise the programme.
 “…they know what our plans would be, they know when we would begin with the intensity of the civic and voter education, this is not something we do willy-nilly and grasp it out the air, it is a plan,” the GECOM Chairman contended.
“We are the people who know how to market elections and elections content. One cannot suddenly come up and decide we are going to do it on this day or on that day. Mr Boodhoo and his team have already done three or four elections; they know what is the good time to start a campaign such as this.”
Dr Surujbally believes that the electorate could easily forget the information if the campaign had started much earlier.
Meanwhile, GECOM has reportedly printed some 150 thousand brochures titled “What every voter should know,” which were distributed nationwide.
“Tens of thousands of these copies have been given to political parties. Now it is true that certain political parties said they didn’t want them because they had their own brochures…I can understand that; what I cannot understand is that it’s almost bordering on an untruth to say you are doing these things, you are telling people about the brochures, you are making statements about GECOM but you do not say that the brochures came from us,” Dr Surujbally stated.
Similarly, the Commission said it is currently running 15 infomercials on radio and television stations. The body also has an arrangement with the four major national newspapers for a “GECOM Corner” to be published every Monday, updating citizens on the preparation process.
Dr Surujbally, in further defence of the GECOM Secretariat and its staff, revealed that a contract was signed with Merundoi Inc. to educate citizens about the voting procedures during episodes of Merundoi as aired on local radio stations Voice of Guyana (VOG) and 98.1 Hot FM.
To complement these efforts, the GECOM Chair is claiming that other relevant information, such as the Official List of Electors, the Disciplined Forces List of Electors, and the Place of Polls is available on the commission’s website at www.gecom.org.gy or persons can call hotline numbers that have been advertised in the media. 
Quizzed on the systems in place to reach residents in remote parts of the country, outside of the ambit of the media, Public Relations Officer Vishnu Persaud revealed that the commission will employ a system of house-to-house visits, as well as utilize PA systems around the various communities. He was supported by Dr Surujbally who believes that the remaining nine days is ample time to complete the process of voter education.
Earlier this week, the three major political parties contesting the general and regional elections; the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and Alliance For Change (AFC) opined that not enough was being done by the commission to educate the electorate ahead of the elections.