Dear Editor,
I refer to SN story of January 12, ‘Secret balloting poses danger – Jagdeo,’ where it was reported, “President Bharrat Jagdeo on Monday warned that using a secret balloting process to decide on the PPP’s next presidential candidate could be dangerous as candidate hopefuls could promise persons things in order to get their votes.”
If President Jagdeo’s cognitive faculties are still intact, he would recognize that a show-of-hands vote is equally “dangerous” and is just as open to manipulation and corruption. Couldn’t a would-be candidate in this electoral scenario also “promise persons things in order to get their votes”?
President Jagdeo has just made the strongest possible argument for an open primary, namely, a vote involving all 2500 dues-paying members of the party. I beg the President to let the members of the party exercise their right to vote for their next leader.
The broadest possible franchise is the standard practice in all democratic societies.
It is more legitimate than a system of 15 persons selecting their candidate, then having these fifteen sitting within another group of thirty-five pressuring them to rubber-stamp their selection.
President Jagdeo, as he is getting ready to leave office, should think of this: What better legacy can he leave behind to guide his party for the next 100 years?
Yours faithfully,
Mike Persaud
