On Tuesday the Private Sector Commission (PSC) added its voice to that of FITUG to call for Election Day to be declared a national holiday. In the last General and Regional Elections in 2006, President Bharrat Jagdeo declared August 28, Election Day, a national holiday. This decision undoubtedly reflected the best of intentions, being motivated as it was by the desire to facilitate a smoothly run and peaceful election. And everything did indeed run smoothly and peacefully.
That was the upside of the decision. But with the wisdom of hindsight we now know that there was a downside.
Owing to the fact that it was not a working day, there was hardly any public transportation available in Georgetown, the lower East Coast, East Bank and West Demerara. Since a proportion of the population of Georgetown and its environs changes domicile with some frequency, anyone who had not registered a change of residence with Gecom, was obliged to vote at the polling station where their name appeared on the voters’ list near to their previous home. For some that involved travelling some distance, and since the minibuses were not working it is thought that many of them did not bother to vote at all. It is one of several reasons which has been advanced for the unusually low turn-out of electors – at least in the urbanized areas.
This time, it is true, there has been house-to-house registration and a new Official List of Electors has been drawn up. However, since that registration exercise took place in 2008, many people have probably moved house, more especially since there are now all these new schemes to the east, south and west of the city. Anyone registered in Georgetown, who since the registration exercise has gone to live in Enmore, say, will not be able to come to the city to vote unless they have their own transportation or can afford a taxi. Of course it could be argued that they could have gone to Gecom to have their address changed, but it is very unlikely that most would have bothered to do this.
FITUG’s press release has said that with a holiday, government, private sector, commercial and educational facilities would be able to plan for the polling day. It might be observed that there was plenty time for all the “facilities” FITUG mentioned to plan for polling day in 2006, yet as mentioned above, the nation experienced the lowest voter turn-out for a free and fair election in its history – a little under 69%. Holding elections on working days, therefore, clearly does not affect turn-out, and might in fact promote it.
The whole idea about Election Day is that arrangements should be of a kind to allow as many registered voters as possible to exercise their franchise. This is an end to which everyone, and not just Gecom, is undoubtedly committed – government, opposition, the private sector, unions and all civic organizations. In 2006 a decision about declaring a national holiday on Election Day was taken in good faith, but with that experience behind us, we should learn the lesson from it in 2011. No one seeks to possibly disenfranchise impecunious voters in the most populous portion of this country, simply because in the absence of minibuses they cannot afford to hire a taxi to go and vote. After all, the poor have a right to cast their ballots too.
