The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) is hopeful that after tomorrow’s elections the entire electoral process will be revamped putting an end to “tribal” elections characterised by race-baiting, anonymous voting and a lack of accountability to the populace.
“The more closely the electoral process in Guyana is examined, the more forcefully the conclusion can be drawn that all of the major defects are inter-locking and all reward ethnic behaviour,” the group said in a press release. “Party control of Gecom privileges the interests of political parties over the interests of citizens as a whole; casting ballots only for parties, not individual candidates reinforces MPs as representatives of parties rather than voters; the law to prevent crossing the floor privileges accountability of MPs to parties over accountability to voters, who are powerless to remove MPs with whom they are dissatisfied.”
Further, the GHRA said, “There exists no compact between voters and candidates in our electoral system: we vote for lists of largely anonymous people. Voters are more influenced by what they see rather than what they hear or read and, regrettably, what they
