Dear Editor,
I have found Mr Vincent Alexander’s letter on the court’s decision to dismiss Ms Carol Joseph’s case on the Elections Commission, published in the “Stabroek News” of April 6, 2025, to be disingenuous.
It is dangerous too, since Mr Alexander has been a member of the Elections Commission for many years, and he must know that his arguments are based on selected information and not on the whole picture.
It could also be considered disrespectful to describe the ruling of the Chief Justic (ag) as “myopic”.
En passant, it is apposite to observe that almost all the decisions handed down by the learned Chief Justice have stood up really well at other levels in the legal system.
It is Mr Alexander who really is myopic, because it seems as though his main purpose is to find ways and means to reduce the security of elections. This has been happening since the post-1997 elections. In the run-up to those elections, the Parliamentary Parties worked to strengthen the security of the vote. Agreements were reached, the most famous being the acceptance of using voter ID cards as the only mean of voting. It was in those, the most secure of elections, that the PPP/Civic has its largest majority.
The PNC have since been doing their darnedest to weaken the process. Even when their proposals were accepted but they lost, they begin ‘again’ to try to discredit GECOM and, indeed, the process.
This time, Mr. Alexander seems to be taking a broader aim, and has included the Judiciary, or judges who uphold the law both in letter and spirit.
Let’s therefore go back to basics and see what is the most important ingredient of a free and fair election. It is to ensure that those who vote are real persons with all the qualifications to be a voter. I submit that this has been the case since 1992. Only real people voted.
When the 1997 elections were audited, it was reported that not a single fraudulent ballot was found. It was because of this that the PNC resorted to using administrative measures as they tried in 2020.
Mr Alexander has clothed his arguments in a lot of fluff. Using statements such as “Residing and Claiming an address are not conterminous”, he is trying to obscure the fact that, to get on the list, one’s address had to be verified.
The process is as follows: Every registrant had to be visited at his/her home, not just by GECOM officials, but by scrutineers of the governing party and the opposition parties as well.
Therefore, the existence of every person on the voters list has been verified; so, too, has been the address where that person resides!
This fact Mr. Alexander must know; he has been on the Commission “since Noah was a little boy.”
Mr. Alexander’s letter is a desperate attempt to create mischief, to misinform and to rabble-rouse. Mr. Alexander and the PNC would do well to focus their energies on producing realistic plans and programmes to capture the imagination of the people, and cease their campaign of disinformation.
Sincerely,
Donald Ramotar
Former President
