In 2010, I wrote an article on the overseas vote in which I argued that the Constitution of Guyana permitted all Guyanese citizens over the age of 18 to vote. Since there was no residence stipulation, Guyanese residing overseas have a right to vote. As readers would imagine, it elicited some controversy. I was a member of the leadership of the PPP at that time. Mr. Robert Corbin, then leader of the PNCR, in a masterful display of irony, accused the PPP of seeking to re-introduce the overseas vote, which, incidentally, the PNC had facilitated and grossly manipulated in the 1968 elections so much so that voters were registered as residing at the address of a horse pasture in the UK. The PPP was forced to issue a denial. Because of the increasing engagement of the diaspora in local affairs, and periodic inquiries as to their right to vote, I had expected that at some time a legal challenge would be instituted by an overseas resident for an order declaring that he/she had the right to vote and that the Guyana Government was obliged to facilitate that right. This did not materialize.
