Government defends Boodoo

Jul 19, 2013 News

– Says GECOM’s checks and balances worked

The government yesterday came out in defence of Former Chief Elections Officer Gocool Boodoo, saying that the decision of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) not to renew his contract was “odd”.
Some Commissioners argued that Boodoo’s flawed mathematical formula would have seen him declaring the PPP as the majority winners in the last elections.

Former Chief Elections Officer Gocool Boodoo

Yesterday, the government’s chief spokesperson Dr Roger Luncheon said the fact that this was picked up and Boodoo was not allowed to carry through with his formula meant that the checks and balances of the Commission worked.
It is claimed that the same formula Mr Boodoo attempted to use in the last elections was used in the 2006 elections, robbing the Alliance for Change of a seat in the National Assembly.
Dr Luncheon said that the entire elections commission made mistakes before.
“It was incontrovertible that the same Commission was prepared to disenfranchise over 7,000 Guyanese voters in its abortive attempt to close claims and objections.
“You might recall the strenuous objections made to overtake…overcome Chairman [Steve] Surjubally’s intention to close claims and objections that led to the extension, during which 7,000 additional Guyanese voters were enfranchised,” Dr. Luncheon said.
“Should the Commission have resigned? Should the Secretariat have been sacked or removed?” Luncheon questioned.
Vincent Alexander, a Commissioner of GECOM, had stated that what Mr Boodoo attempted was not a “mistake” but a planned action to manipulate the results of the 2011 General and Regional elections.
The actual results of the elections saw the PPP losing majority power in the National Assembly, which it had held on to since 1992, in four successive elections. If Mr Boodoo was allowed to have his way, Alexander claimed, the PPP would have been handed the majority in the House.
“It required a sustained exchange; reference to the legal provisions that provide for the formula; and my insistence that he had used an incorrect formula that caused Mr Boodoo to resort to the correct and only available formula to recalculate the allocation of seats.”