Dear Editor,
With reference to a letter by Shawn Mangru in SN on February 17 under the caption ‘Overseas based Guyanese should be given their constitutional right to vote,’ I hope this adventurism is put to rest once and for all. What constitutional right should we overseas-based Guyanese have? No one placed a gun to our head and said we must leave Guyana. Most of us left by choice in pursuit of a better life and greater opportunity, and if we are so interested in voting in the Guyanese election we are duty bound to book the next ticket to Georgetown and live there. The old people say you cannot blow whistle and suck cane at the same time. In politics, you cannot vote for Obama and Ramotar, Trotman or Corbin at the same time. You must as a matter of principle choose your home state and wherever you choose, you must ethically live with your choice.
If we non-resident Guyanese (NRG) are Guyanese to the core, then we must make that core Guyanese decision and go back home. I respect that most Guyanese choose to live abroad for their children’s sake, but then these societies grow on you and you make that conscious decision not to go back to Guyana because of the economic acceleration that living in New York City provides. It is a choice, and once that choice is made, you have to bear the responsibility of losing the right to vote in Guyana and vote for Mayor Bloomberg instead. Thus this irrespons-ible dialogue of what the constitution says and what the law says is destructive at a minimum and is simply pandering to adventurism. The principle remains if you want to vote in Guyana, then make that choice and live in Guyana. You cannot have the best of both worlds.
‘Guyanese to the core’ is a term used by Mr Mangru based on emotion with no foundation in common sense. The right to vote is a very sacred right that requires sacrifice. The mere fact that one foregoes an opportunity to live in New York City preserves his right to vote in the Guyanese elections if he chooses to live in Guyana. Leslie Ramsammy is an American who chooses to live and work in Guyana, and he deserves to vote in Guyana, but Sasenarine Singh who chooses to live out of Guyana at this point in time does not deserve to vote in the 2011 Guyanese elections. I will exercise that right when I re-migrate to Guyana, but until then, I have lost that right. I can comment on Guyanese politics but I cannot vote in Guyanese elections.
Why should a New Yorker have the right to vote in Guyana when he or she is not willing to experience the economic sacrifice that a resident of Berbice has to endure? With sacrifice come rights. If you give up the responsibility to endure the economic burden of living in Guyana, then you should not share the rights of voting in the Guyanese elections.
Who gives a hoot how much the NRG remits to Guyana? It is not a fait accompli; it is a choice decision. I have remitted several hundreds of pounds for a variety of issues in 2009, including charity but it was never a burden or by force, it was always by choice, so how does that give me a right to vote in the Guyanese elections?
Mr Mangru’s logic defies common sense. I actually congratulate the Guyanese men and women who have endured the burden and stress of living in Guyana and wish them well in their next vote, but I do not envy them; they have earned that right to vote by forgoing economic wealth and opportunity that I have access to by living in a developed country.
If the constitution is designed this way, then it should be changed to ensure one man, one vote once you are resident in Guyana.
I do not know where Mr Mangru lives, but thousands of Guyanese have made Richmond Hill their home and their children are not Guyanese, they are American and they live the American dream, so why should they get the right to vote in an alien country − Guyana. It is like asking me to vote in the next Indian election when India is a very alien country to me, at least this is how I felt about it when I visited it.
So the Mangrus of this world should stop this nonsense and focus on our environment, contribute to Guyana if we so love it, and stop demanding rights we should not have.
If the constitution spells out that overseas Guyanese have the right to vote in Guyana, then it would clearly demonstrate that we have not adequately reformed Burnham’s consti-tution. Chills run up my spine to think that horses and donkeys in Kent or Cheshire in the UK will be voting in Guyanese elections again, like they did in 1968 and 1973.
I am disappointed that this destructive seed of overseas voting was planted, so we must nip this recklessness in the bud once and for all.
Yours faithfully,
Sasenarine Singh
