Citizens expect a credible election

Nov 08, 2019 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

Dr Henry Jeffrey makes an important and largely overlooked point in his Future Notes column in Stabroek News of November 6 2019 “What are we to do?”: that while the right of an individual to vote is fundamental, the right of that individual to expect his or her vote to be part of a free and fair election is equally fundamental.
As it now stands, we have the absurdity of a voters’ list totalling well over 650,000 voters. When the last time house-to-house registration was completed in 2008, it generated 430,000 registrants. That therefore is the base, the cleanest list possible – removed of those who have died or migrated. So without question the current register is ridiculously bloated and cannot be the basis for an accurate Official List of Electors. The dead, the migrated, must make up a vast majority of these extra numbers, but how certain can we be that there are not duplicate names who might be allowed to “vote” in remote polling stations far from the eyes of observers and party scrutineers?
That should be a cause of great concern to all Guyanese. Why the PPP/C, which had insisted on house to house registration after 2015, have since done an about face, remains a mystery.
One doesn’t have to remind the reader how important this election is in the context of Guyana becoming an oil-producing nation, and as such the stakes being so high. It is essential, therefore, that it is deemed 100% clean and non controversial. The current mess that is the voters list is no basis for that.
Yours sincerely
Albert Russell

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