Dear Editor,
Mr Hamilton Green’s own words refute him in his letter of March 27, 2019 in Stabroek News. President Hoyte was elected in 1985 in the most rigged election in our history. Then as now the Government selected the Chairman of the Elections Commission. Elections were due in 1990 but were held in 1992. What was GECOM doing in the two extra years after the due date for the lists to be clearly flawed?
Being idle, like they were recently since December 2018 after the no confidence vote, would be enough to flaw the lists in the 2+5=7 years before the 1992 election. Mr Green said that they were generated at the instance of the Carter Center. Why did it have to be at the instance of the Carter Center? Did not GECOM know its job? Or did it just employ its unqualified friends from the ruling party to turn blind eyes to rigging?
But to be “clear that the list generated, we understood, at the instance of the Carter Center was seriously flawed” must require active corruption! (My italics)
I was conscripted as a volunteer to assist the presiding officer from an apolitical civic grouping at a city polling station in 1992. I spent much of the night after close of poll filling up the numerous forms. I required no training more than my knowledge of the English language to understand what had to be done. When I offered myself as an election official in subsequent elections up to 2006 I was required to undergo training along with many others. I punctually attended all the training days and stayed to the very end of each session. I noted the high degree of lateness and absenteeism in sessions after the first morning session, at which time participants were first registered. At the end of every training an exam was written.
I never saw the results of any of these exams! When I enquired from GECOM officials I was told not to worry with that. But when elections came I achieved the status of polling clerk on the first occasion and no appointment on subsequent polls, while people who did not attend all the sessions, and even no session, became Presiding and even Returning Officers. It has since occurred to me that I was offered a position that one time because I had written to the then GECOM chairman to make a suggestion (which was commendably implemented); and I overheard recruiters referring to that letter when I showed up for work.
As regards “the tension build up in Georgetown” that Mr Green refers to in 1992, some people claiming to speak for the government came in to my polling station on that day to advise us to allow people without sufficient identification to vote, “because otherwise there would be disturbances” by ostensibly disenfranchised people. I remember the Presiding Officer listening calmly; but equally calmly and firmly refusing to implement such a thing. I don’t know what took place in other polling stations, but this would certainly have contributed to the “tension build up”.
I retired from trying to work for elections, but after sending some more constructive criticism to the previous Chairman of GECOM, I was asked to apply again. I addressed my application to the Chief Election Officer, according to the full-page ads in the newspapers, sending in CV and all the other information required. I did not even get an acknowledgement.
One recommendation I can make from these experiences is that the training exams should be administered and marked by an independent organization, who must publish the results.
Yours faithfully,
Alfred Bhulai
