GENERAL Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), Mr. Clement Rohee yesterday weighed in on the expansive response by Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Dr. Steve Surujbally to several concerns expressed by the party.

And he contended that the Chairman “portrayed a high degree of intolerance” to the party’s voicing of its concerns.
“It is unfortunate that the Chairman of GECOM at his recent press conference portrayed a high degree of intolerance with the PPP’s consistent and principled position of sharing its findings with GECOM and in the public domain,” Rohee said at the PPP weekly press briefing at Freedom House.
GECOM last Thursday hosted a press conference to respond to the ruling party and the Commission’s Chairman undertook to challenge “misinformation” peddled by the entity’s critics.
The point-by-point response to several areas of concerns, all of which were raised by the ruling PPP, effectively answered the party’s call for answers.
Days prior to GECOM’s press conference, the PPP General Secretary called on GECOM to explain:

* The increase of almost 80,000 voters on the Preliminary List of Electors (PLE);
* How persons living at the same address in Georgetown but are placed on different divisional lists;
* Why it has not yet conducted a physical verification of the discovery of 18 electors at one address;
* The discovery of 10 persons listed at an address at Prospect, East Bank Demerara, which is an unoccupied empty lot “overgrown” with bushes;
* The listing of approximately 2,958 persons, although the deceased are still included on the PLE.

Surujbally was emphatic in rejecting what he termed “ill-advised” accusations against the Commission and its Secretariat, over the last few weeks.
“While we are not speculating about why X, Y and Z are being done, we do have the right, a duty and an obligation to tell this nation the truth and bare naked the falsehoods and unprovoked innuendoes which seem to have as a sole objective to blemish the image and credibility which we at GECOM have so painstakingly and with much effort nurtured over the years,” he said.
The GECOM Chairman added that the “ill-advised accusations have been unremitting,” despite the fact that GECOM’s ‘A Team’ has prepared for and mastered elections that have contributed to improving the election processes of emerging democracies elsewhere.

CORRECTING DISCREPANCIES
He also asserted that the areas of criticism that have been raised are unacceptable, unwarranted and undeserved, but also gave the assurance that GECOM is working to correct whatever discrepancies, externally or internally, that exist.
The General Secretary has since maintained that the PPP will oppose any and every attempt to manipulate the voters’ list from any quarter. “The PPP will continue to check the list diligently to ensure it is clean and transparent so that every eligible Guyanese can exercise their franchise,” Rohee said.