Dear Editor,
Since the issue of secret ballot is attracting some attention in Guyana, I thought I should draw your readers’ attention to recent experience in Ireland.
Brian Cowen is the Prime Minister. After a severe and prolonged economic crisis requiring loans from the European Union amounting to US$113 billion, Prime Minister Cowen announced last Sunday, January 16: “I will place a motion of confidence in my leadership for next Tuesday’s parliamentary party meeting. The vote will be by secret ballot.” Shawn Pogatchnik of Associated Press reported last Tuesday, January 18, that “Cowen prevailed in a secret, unrecorded ballot versus his only challenger, Foreign Minister, Michael Martin.”
The secret ballot is the standard form of voting in any contested elections. The first two sentences in Wikipedia on the “secret ballot” state: “The secret ballot is a voting method in which a voter’s choices in an election or referendum are confidential.
“The key aim is to ensure the voter records a sincere choice by forestalling attempts to influence the voter by intimidation or bribery.”
Yours faithfully,
Ralph Ramkarran
