GECOM has no reason to be unprepared for elections

Dear Editor,
A lot of talk is being heard about Guyana Elections Commission’s (GECOM) preparedness for the holding of National and Regional Elections. We are also hearing talk that a new house-to-house registration is needed. Now we are hearing talk about them needing 180 days to prepare.
All of these claims are really excuses with the view of frustrating the will of the Guyanese people.
I say this because in 2015 the Commission had 90 days to prepare and they did to hold elections in May of that year.
All over the world, including in our sister Caricom states, Election Commissions are ready to conduct free and fair polls with as little as a month’s notice.
Millions of Guyanese taxpayers’ dollars are spent to put GECOM on such a footing.
Recall that GECOM was made into a permanent Commission in the year 2000. Before then it was not. It was set up only to conduct elections and then dissolved.
The reason for doing so was to ensure that GECOM would always be ready to conduct elections. The situation which we have now was always anticipated as a possibility.  Therefore, measures were put in place to ensure that GECOM would be ready at all times.
Continuous registration began in 2005. By legislation, the law mandated that the list of 2001 be used as the base for continuous registration.
Let me state that that piece of legislation was reached by agreement with all the political parties in the National Assembly.
When the operation began, GECOM had an arrangement with the General Registration Office to get monthly reports of all the persons who died during that month. That list was shared with the political parties. The purpose of that was to ensure that the names of those who died were constantly removed from the lists.  That practice was ongoing at least up to 2015.  I have every reason to believe that it is continuing.
I am aware that GECOM had even moved to get the lists from Police Stations to be given to the Registration Offices in each region. This was to accelerate the process of removing names of the dead.
Therefore, there can be no argument that GECOM is not ready.  It was provided with all the resources to fulfil its mandate.
Mr Ramjattan has displayed his lack of knowledge about elections issues, or he is faking to play for more time. He had said that he wanted new house-to-house registration, to put onto the list, persons who have come of age.
The laws that established GECOM have made provisions for putting people on the list.
I have described one such process in the form of continuous registration.
The other way is during the Claims and Objections period which every election must have. During this time all those who had recently come of age can put their names on the list and those, who for one reason or the other were not registered can also be registered. In the same way names of the dead that were missed can be removed. That is why the period is named ‘Claims and Objections’.
It is therefore difficult to understand why GECOM is not ready. They have been given a constitutional mandate and they must fulfil it.
All the talk about lack of readiness is either dishonest, pushed by persons who want a rigged election or because of the lack of knowledge or both.
If GECOM officials are saying they are not ready, then it means that they are compromising themselves to satisfy the APNU/AFC.

Sincerely,
Donald Ramotar
Former President