NOT satisfied with the Guyana Elections Commission’s (GECOMs) education campaign on the upcoming Local Government Elections (LGEs) is Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo who has referred to the efforts as “sparse.”

His comments were made on Wednesday at his weekly press conference where he also addressed his leading role in the People’s Progressive Party’s (PPP’s) LGE campaign as opposed to a successive leader.

“I don’t know much about this public education programme. I even had trouble remembering it because it’s so sparse. As to whether there has been anything done, I don’t know. It could be because I have not been tracking the programmes on T/V etcetera, I’ve been busy. But I’ve seen very little evidence of it,” Jagdeo stated.

Regarding his role in the campaign, he said: “Our party leaders are right across the country. Each member of [the] central committee has an area of responsibility; they are having many public meetings; they are leading the meetings on the ground. “My press conference is a regular press conference and I don’t have a problem with going out there to bat for our candidates. I’m on the ballot [sic], they are …but I’m still the general-secretary of the party.”

Speaking, too, on the government’s announcement that all public schools will be closed on Monday, November 12, 2018, to facilitate LGEs, the opposition leader stated that he is not against this provision. “I think people should allow their employees to go and vote. I saw the schools are to be closed to facilitate the voting at the polling places. People have a responsibility, a civic responsibility, to vote,” he said.

He added that on the PPP’s political campaign, party members continue to reinforce the importance of voting; and Jagdeo reminded that during periods such as the1950s, this was not possible for all Guyanese.

However, as recent as three years ago before the current administration, for some 23 years the PPP had failed to hold LGEs, choosing to replace outgoing councillors with Interim Management Committees.

It wasn’t until March 2016 that the democratic process was restored.

Nonetheless, again comparing the 1950s to present times, the opposition leader said: “Now that we have this right every one of us [must vote]. This is not for PPP supporters alone, this is for Guyanese; this is essentially a part of our freedom as people that now that we have this right we must exercise it.”