Did the PNCR abandon its commissioners?

Jul 24, 2011 Features / Columnists, My Column

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By Adam Harris

The mind of the politician must be different from the mind of ordinary people. In the first instance, there must be something that would make a person do anything to lord it over others and at the same time be prepared to sacrifice his privacy. Ordinary people like to sit quietly when they want to get away from prying eyes.
Politicians like to make promises and while people say that they lie, the truth is that at the time they make the promises they actually believe themselves. In most cases they do not deliver on the promises and they then set out to justify the non-delivery.
Ordinary people are somewhat different. They hesitate to make promises and this is perhaps because they must always rely on themselves. They do not have access to the treasury and they certainly have no access to state assets. They are loyal to their friends and family, but then again, politicians are the same and this leads in the case of the latter, to nepotism. But when all is said and done, their greatest joy comes from being lord and master over all. This is the ultimate enjoyment of power.
This power leads them to embarrass people. No one is spared the embarrassment, as was the case last week when the People’s National Congress Reform went to the National Assembly to undo the work of its members on the Guyana Elections Commission.
The issue was the vote on whether to re-open the period of claims and objections. Indeed, the opposition parties were the first to moot this suggestion because while they were in the fields they found that many people had been prevented from getting registered because they did not have birth certificates.
More than three years ago the very elections commission had taken a decision that during the second round of house to house registration, every effort would be made to prevent duplicate registration. The last time, despite all the promised security and checks to avoid it, people did succeed in registering more than once, using different names.
I later saw for myself that there were people who managed to get three identification cards. The Guyana Elections Commission had promised electronic checks. There was talk about checking fingerprints and scanning photographs. The commission did manage to intercept a few, and it did call in the police to pursue criminal charges.
The police simply ignored the request and no one was prosecuted. To this day I cannot understand the action of the police. Perhaps the force simply did not want to conduct the investigation because it might have gone after people who were too close to prominent people. And in Guyana, prominent people or their relatives are immune from prosecution.
However, this time around there was this insistence on birth certificates, and for three years the General Registrar’s Office was besieged. But in Guyana, there are always people who would wait for the last minute. Then there are those who are apathetic until the deadline is past. Then they make noise about being disenfranchised.
In this case, I am certain that the politicians, on the campaign trail, began to canvas votes and actually found that there were people who had not registered. Remember that the opposition parties had made this request to have registration reopened. I can only assume that the ruling party felt good because the number of likely opposition votes had been reduced.
Lo and behold, the ruling party forgot that Guyanese are the same, regardless of political affiliation. There were their supporters who did not take the time to get registered. An approach was made to the elections commission.
I have seen documentation out of the commission that suggested that the commission had reservations. It was certain that the elections would be delayed. I later learnt from the Chairman that he was convinced by his staff that this would not be the case. I do not know how the staff could be so certain given the extent of uncertainty about the process and the need to send the new information to California for verification.
Nevertheless, the commission voted. It is here that I have a serious problem. The PNCR members on the commission voted against the reopening of the period of claims and objections. I would like to believe that they were briefed by their party before they went to the vote.
However, a few days later, the very PNCR went to the National Assembly and voted contrary to its commissioners. I need not ask how those commissioners feel. Betrayal may be a simplistic answer. Surely, many believe that the commissioners are of the view that their party was confused.
I understand that the opposition leader said that this was one piece of legislation that did not need a two-thirds majority, so he said that he introduced amendments to protect the voting public.
From my vantage point I cannot conclude that the elections would be postponed. I for one am upset that the period was reopened… and for just four thousand people, many of whom will not vote anyhow.
The one thing that is a bit distressing is that people who were allowed to vote in the past cannot do so now. Guyana has been home to many islanders—people from St Lucia, St Vincent, Dominica and the like who came here in the old days to pursue their future in the gold fields.
Many have been here for fifty years or more. They never sought to become naturalized, but they were allowed to vote by virtue of living here for so long. Strange that during the field work no one sought to have these people become naturalized. And they had three years to do so.

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