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Jagdeo wants to railroad Constitutional and Independent Institutions
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.
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 electorates who are eligible to exercise their democratic right.
It was the former President Bharrat Jagdeo who said that Guyana Elections Commission has the right to allow for the participation of all eligible persons 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 can 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. 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 Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) 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.
Borrowing from a writer, Jagdeo’s insistence on an early date for election is puzzling.
The cumulative loss between 2001 and 2011 was 54,292 votes. But, inexplicably, the PPP polled 202,694 votes at the 2015 elections, or an increase by 36,354 votes over its showing in 2011, during which period, the government had wallowed in corruption and had sunken to an all-time low in popularity.
When the voters’ list jumped upwards by a whopping 107,948 voters, the PPP romped home with 202,694 votes or 36,354 more than it had received in 2011.
The Coalition has already made its case that the voter’s list is contaminated and therefore house-to-house registration was necessary.
Regards
George Goring
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