Dear Editor,
The local press published responses by Sherwood Lowe and Vincent Alexander to my previous letters regarding the voters’ list. I wish, with due brevity, to offer a rejoinder. Neither of these two gentlemen advanced the debate with any worthy arguments. Both rehashed the positions they earlier adumbrated, including persisting with the contention that the presence of overseas-based Guyanese and dead persons on the voters’ list results in voter impersonation. Both resolutely allege that this occurred at the March 2nd, 2020 Elections. The public record is replete with persons who came forward, both on the conventional and social media, to debunk claims made by APNU/AFC that they were dead or overseas on March 2nd, 2020 and voted at those elections. These persons vigorously rejected those allegations, proclaiming that they were present in Guyana and indicated the polling station at which they cast their ballots.
On the other hand, I challenge both Messrs. Lowe and Alexander to PROVE to the public a singular case where a vote was cast at those elections by a person in the name of a deceased person or in the name of a person overseas on March 2nd, 2020.
Messrs.
Lowe and Alexander introduced one new argument each into the exchange. For completeness of the public record, I wish to offer my comments on these additions.
Mr. Lowe insinuates that I am advocating for overseas voting. It is indeed befuddling how Mr. Lowe arrived at this curious conclusion. I have advanced no such contention.
Mr. Alexander accuses me of not responding to a letter of his dated November 7th, 2022. This accusation is quite in order. I neither read nor responded to that letter. My response to Mr. Alexander was solely and exclusively in respect of his letter of 19/11/2022.
I gather that in his letter dated November 7th, Mr. Alexander proffered proposals regarding the use of “biometric fingerprint identification at the place of poll”. His letter ends with the following, in reference to me: “…why is he so fiercely opposing fingerprint identification at the place of poll?” Any able reader would confirm that I wrote not a line in my exchange with Mr. Alexander on biometrics of any type. I am therefore at a loss in understanding from whence Mr. Alexander discerned my “fierce opposition” to the same. Mr Alexander well knows that biometrics is a new injection in this discourse, which requires separate treatment, as it is outside the scope of this debate.
The inconvenient truth is that APNU/AFC need to spend less time and energy in these fanciful electoral forays and concentrate in getting the voter to the polling station to cast a ballot in their favour. That is how elections are fairly won. There is simply no substitute.
I believe that I have comprehensively addressed and conclusively settled the germane issue of controversy in this exchange; that is, that persons whose names are lawfully on the list cannot be considered ‘bloat’.
I rest.
Yours faithfully,
Mohabir Anil Nandlall, SC, MP
Attorney General & Minister of Legal Affairs
