ATTORNEY-at-Law, Charles S. Ramson has voiced his support for Mr Gocool Boodhoo, Chief Elections Officer of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to continue in that capacity.

Ramson, who’s also Founder/CEO of buymygy.com Guyana’s Online Marketplace, said that with the impending decision on whether to renew Boodhoo’s contract, set for Tuesday, he fears that the Board will “capriciously, precipitously and without due process” terminate his services as Chief Elections Officer. He is also of the opinion that it seems ominous that his fate is “fait accompli” and that Tuesday’s event is merely a perfunctory exercise.
Said the young attorney: “How can anyone, or group of people, logically decide not to renew the contract of an individual who has, over the span of his 13-year tenure at GECOM, critically facilitated the delivery of three free and fair elections that have been observed and certified by both international and local observers? It’s spurious!”
Noting that the electoral history of Guyana must be contextualised in this situation, Ramson said:  “We are all too aware of the protests, the riots, the burnings, the marches, the regression, the instability, the negative publicity, the economic disasters etc. in our recent electoral past.
But fortunately, he said, we were privileged to have had, by and large, peaceful elections in 2006 and 2011, in which latter year “we saw for the very first time a Government without a majority in Parliament.”
In no small measure, he said, “credit has to be given to GECOM, including and especially Mr. Boodhoo… And so, the reward for the critical role that Mr. Boodhoo has played in this success will be to not renew his contract… It just doesn’t make any sense and it sends the wrong message to the public.”
Ramson said that while some, especially opposition members.supporters, sympathisers, and  what he prefers to call “clandestine acolytes”, may have had a gripe with Boodhoo’s announcement of results that turned out subsequently to be inaccurate, he was merely doing his job by announcing the information that was fed him through the system that GECOM designed and operated.
Contending that Boodhoo  has always been impartial and never shown, by action, word or otherwise, his support for any particular party, Ramson said: “That’s the kind of people that we need at GECOM to continue free and fair elections, and not return to the rigged elections and its consequences of the past when the voices of the Guyanese people were ignored and disregarded.”
GECOM Chairman, Dr Steve Surujbally, he said, was also similarly criticised after the last election over the delay in tabulating the results, especially for a country with only approximately 300,000 voters, and there were also calls for his head as well.
But now, in what can only be described as a sudden about face, Ramson said: “Those calls have since been abated, and transformed into approbation by the opposition parties and inexplicably, Dr Surujbally has now indicated that he intends to not vote for Mr.Boodhoo’s contract of employment to be renewed.”
He concludes by saying: “If Mr.Boodhoo gets sacked, it will not be premised upon his performance or lack thereof, and he will unfortunately end up being a victim of self-serving survival deals, and a casualty of political warfare.”