Ever since the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) decided that it intended to remove over 25,000 persons who have not collected their national identification cards since 2008 from the list of electors, the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) has been up in arms, claiming that such an action would be illegal. It is as if that party wants us to believe that what is legal or illegal should be our sole concern when it comes to elections management. However, the PPP has participated in the recent establishment of GECOM and it is that body that has decided that these names have to be removed from the electoral list if it is to provide the basis for the conduct of credible, free and fair elections on the 2nd March 2010.
Few would want to argue with the claim that an electoral list that is shorn of those not eligible to vote is a primary condition for conducting credible elections. The other means of verification are similarly important and should not be substituted for a clean list. Multiple voting digitally or at polling places devalues the vote and thus the constitutional right of every citizen. Particularly now, in a context where elections are won by less than 5000 votes, possible opportunities for multiple voting should be immediately removed. Over the years the PPP has been the loudest advocate and defender of free and fair elections, yet today when it still has authority to participate and make the process legal, it has become the defender of an unacceptable status quo. As perceived by GECOM the bloated list developed essentially under the PPP/C’s watch and could and should have long ago been legally removed. The PPP’s unusual behaviour began in about mid-2018 when the PNCR indicated that it intended to support house to house (HtH) registration, and its underhand parliamentary behaviour and many ludicrous appeals to what is lawful since then suggest that the existence of a bloated list plays to its advantage.
