Dear Editor,
One of the big difficulties in dealing with political issues in Guyana is the unprincipled position which the opposition parties constantly take. They make agreements and frequently they renege on them.
This is a long history that goes back to the 1950s. The issue of the voters list that they have been making recently falls in this category. I have been involved in many discussions with the PNC and other opposition’s parties on many issues. In relation to the voters list, we discussed this issue thoroughly. One of the issues we spoke about was the need to have the Elections Com-mission always ready to hold an election or referenda. We discussed the reason for this. The question of the possibility of a no-confidence motion being passed and for us to be able to hold an election within the time frame stipulated in the constitution was a strong consideration. We also talked about the possibility of holding referenda on important issues that may arise from time to time. All these discussions arose because every time we wanted to have an election, the Commission had to do a house to house registration.
We decided to adopt the system similar to our Caribbean sister/brother countries. That is to have continuous registration and spare us the time and the horrendous expenses of going to new house to house registration. The political parties and the government agreed on one more house to house registration and thereafter to update the list through the process of continuous registration. We signed that agreement on Thursday 14 June 2007. I hereby quote two paragraphs from that agreement “The Government of Guyana (GoG), the Peoples Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/C), the Peoples National Congress Reform One Guyana (PNCR-1G), the Alliance for Change (AFC), the Guyana Action Party-Rise Organize and Rebuild (GAP-ROAR), the United Force (TUF), and the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) agree that, prior to the holding of the forthcoming Local Government Elections, a national 2007 House-to-House Registration, of all eligible registrants aged 14 years and over, will be undertaken by GECOM and this will constitute the country’s new National Register of Registrants (NRR). “…All of the abovementioned parties agree that the procedure of continuous registration will, thereafter, be used by the Guyana Elections Commission to update the NRR, on an ongoing basis, to ensure that a voters list could be readily extracted for holding of future elections…”
This agreement was signed by Gail Teixeira on behalf of the Government of Guyana, Donald Ramotar on behalf of the Peoples Progressive Party/Civic, Robert Corbin on behalf of the Peoples National Congress Reform One Guyana, Khemraj Ramjattan on behalf of the Alliance for Change. The other parties that signed were Guyana Action Party – Rise Organize and Rebuild and the United Force. Now here we go again, we see the PNC and AFC reneging on this agreement once more. The AFC has announced that it is boycotting the elections because they want a new list. The PNC has not said anything as yet but from previous statements that is a possibility. The leadership of the two main opposition political parties, PNC and AFC are devoid of principles. Over and over again they have displayed their unreliability. In conclusion let me say that there is nothing uncommon with the size of the list in proportion to the size of the population. The ratio is almost the same as other Caribbean countries which have adopted the continuous registration process. The main problem is the unprincipled position of the opposition parties
Sincerely,
Donald Ramotar
Former President
