THE People’s Progressive Party / Civic (PPP/C) has renewed its calls for public vetting of all polling day staff, reiterating that this process will act as a catalyst for Guyanese to trust and respect the results declared by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).PPP General Secretary, Clement Rohee reiterated this call yesterday at the party’s weekly press conference.

Rohee declared that “with all the optimism and hope for a transparent process, the PPP calls on GECOM to ensure that persons recruited to work on elections day are selected through a transparent process so as to gain the nation’s acceptance of the results.”
Just recently he reasoned that the Party’s request is legitimate, given reports of persons who acted in a biased manner and created problems in 2011 and previous elections.
Therefore, “the PPP calls on GECOM to prevent the occurrences of 2011 in regards to last minute changes to polling stations and inexperienced information clerks misguiding voters,” he said.
PUBLIC VETTING
Public vetting can only “improve the confidence of the electorate in GECOM and solidify its own integrity of elections management. It is important that the most suited persons based on experience, qualifications and background is employed to work on polling day.”
Meanwhile, commenting on the matter sometime ago Deputy Chief Elections Officer (DCEO), Vishnu Persaud explained that employees engaged by GECOM are already vetted.
He said: “We have vetted our polling day staff. We sent out applications, people responded, we shortlisted them on the basis of the criteria we set out. We have trained them. We went through evaluations and on this basis the levels of achievement we will be selecting people to work in polling stations.”
Persaud added that the persons hired are also dispatched within their areas, where they are known to the voters in that particular area.

(By Navendra Seoraj)