Dear Editor,
Concerned that President Granger’s refusal to name a date for elections can make Guyana the Region’s newest dictatorship, your letter writer Mr. Wesley Kirton implores “our leaders”…“[to] spare no effort to ensure that our dear country is not brought into global disrepute.” Mr. Kirton volunteered that his letter was being written while he was viewing television coverage of the UN Human Rights Council meeting at which several nations are condemning Saudi Arabia on its human rights record. No doubt Mr. Kirton understands that the right to vote is one of the most sacred human rights available (Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights adopted in the Guyana Constitution) and that having refused to name a date, Granger is not only defying the National Assembly and the Courts – two of the three arms of the state – but also denying Guyanese of their human rights.
What is strange is the suggestion by Kirton that it is some unnamed “our leaders” and not specifically Granger, who are bringing the country into global disrepute. Kirton knows as well as anyone else that it is Granger and no one else who has the power to name a date for elections. But Kirton then shields Granger from the consequence of his failure to name a date by his (Kirton’s) attempt to rewrite Article 106 (7) of the Constitution. With only thirteen days left before the expiry for the holding of the elections, Kirton belatedly calls on Granger to name a date and let GECOM justify its refusal to hold the elections on the date named!
Kirton must be aware of the incestuous relationship between the Granger Administration and GECOM and his call can be construed as suggesting a conspiracy between them both to justify the non-holding of elections and to stave off global criticism. After all, Kirton knows, as well as GECOM once did, that it has no such discretion. As much was admitted by GECOM in the State-owned Chronicle of December 27, 2018 in which GECOM, recognising the No Confidence Motion of six days earlier, stated that “With this no-confidence motion, it means once the date is set, it will be held… it is our constitutional mandate to conduct the General and Regional Elections and Local Government Elections (LGEs) whenever they are constitutionally due; so whether it is in the 90 days then it is GECOM’s responsibility to conduct elections”.
Suddenly, after Granger and his Government decided to fight tooth and nail in staving off elections and democracy, GECOM, like puppets on a string, suddenly became incapacitated with all forms of ailment including money, even though the National Assembly had just voted then $5,400 million for this year! That equates to $12,000 per voter if we use a number of 450,000 voters. If GECOM cannot deliver elections at $12,000 per vote, incompetence is only one of the reasons.
Even now, GECOM knows that if there was an opportune time for holding of those elections, it would have been well within the three months period. It had just successfully conducted country-wide local government elections in which more than two hundred thousand persons had voted; a cohort of trained elections officers was available for reassembling; the physical machinery was in place; and the electorate had no reason for questioning the integrity of the process and the administrators. That is now no longer available.
It has been 77 days since the passage of the No Confidence Motion, 114 days since the Motion was tabled in the National Assembly and 72 days since GECOM said in the Chronicle that it would be ready. But it then went into hibernation, taking its cue from Granger rather than preparing honestly and seriously to carry out its constitutional mandate.
It is hard to avoid any other conclusion but that the present leadership of GECOM is willing to return to the sordid kind of elections between 1968 and 1992 and it, along with Granger, seems willing to bring – to borrow Kirton’s words – our dear country into global disrepute.
Yours faithfully,
Christopher Ram
