Dear Editor,

OVER the past couple of months, we have seen the manipulation, the bullyism and the bureaucratic attempt to reduce the powers of an established constitutional agency, namely, the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).

The main opposition political party, the PPP/C, has sought in many ways to undermine the intent and purpose of the elections body to hold free, fair and credible elections.
The constitution provides for a chairman to lead this independent body to ensure that citizens’ constitutional rights are upheld and protected, thus ensuring that they are allowed to exercise their democratic right to vote for the government of their choice.
The constitution also provides for a clean list of electors who are eligible to exercise their democratic right.

It was the former President Bharrat Jagdeo who said that GECOM has the right to allow the participation of all eligible persons to vote in an election. That, he had said, is the only body authorised to advise the head of state on its readiness to hold elections, which would then dictate when the head of state would announce a date for the holding of elections, so that the eligible voting public could exercise their franchise.

The voters’ list expired on April 30, 2019, and is said to have in excess of 20,000 persons registered on it. But yet we see the list is not only bloated with names of persons now deceased, but also includes Guyanese who have migrated for extensive periods. The seven-member commission is discussing the possibility of removing the names of at least 20,000 persons from the National Register of Registrants (NRR), because they have not uplifted their national identification (ID) cards over the years, and also ticking off the names of thousands of others who were previously registered as part of a heightened vigilance.

Regards
George Goring