PNC would never accept a free-and-fair system

Dear Editor,
As a writer and a historian, I would be doing great disservice to the people of this great country if I did not conduct an in-depth analysis of the history of Guyana’s electoral system.
History is replete with the skullduggeries of the PNC when it comes to elections and electoral laws, beginning at the Elections Commission, which has control of the electoral machinery, and coming down to the declaration of results.
Every facet has been rigged. The fraudulent fingers of the PNC have been etched on every page. Our discussion goes back to 1964 and the entrance of the PNC into power. Here we see the first move made; that is, to take full control of the electoral machinery. They created a setup wherein the chairman of the commission had to pledge allegiance to the PNC party. Thereafter, all his decisions had to be solely based on directives coming out of Congress Place. This is the PNC at work.
During that same period, 1964-1992, the Elections Commission of the day presided over the most blatant forms of rigging ever. It was a time when no observers were allowed in Guyana, nor did the list from which the electors were extracted bear any correlation to the actual voting population in the country. It was the worst of times.
If this is not a direct representation of a padded ghost election list, then what is?
Guyana was in deep trouble, as there was no one to turn to for help; everything was in an ironclad mould. The PNC had our country on a total lockdown with their rigging stranglehold. There was no hue and cry made of a bloated list, nor were any dissenting views coming from the PNC Camp; everything was proceeding nicely, according to them. Cries of a bloated voters list, ghosts voting, and the lot came into the vocabulary when the first free and fair system was tried in 1992 using The Carter Model.
From that point onwards, the PNC found fault with a free and transparent system.
And with good reason, because here we saw the establishment of an Election Commission that was free of encumbrance from Congress Place and the ushering in of the principle of one man one vote. The PNC had lost control of the electoral machinery as well as the rigging grip they once wielded. They might not want to accept it, but rigging is dead, and so are their spurious claims of a padded list. No one would take them seriously when they come up with these claims.
To compensate for the loss of control over the electoral administration, they are now trying to lure GECOM into bringing into mainstream an untried system which would provide a niche for their rigging formula, but this would not happen because we are ever alert to the hidden agenda of the PNC. And that’s why I would say having cameras at polling stations yes, but biometrics a blunt no! The more scrutiny, the more transparent and open a system we welcome with open arms.
The fact is that elections in Guyana need no complicated system of identification. We already have a system that addresses that problem, multiple voting has also been outlawed, so there is no need to fear. The real fear is the PNC themselves. Can someone tell them that rigging cannot lift its ugly head again?
A free, fair and transparent system of elections in Guyana is something the PNC would never embrace, but that is their problem. Do not visit that illiteracy on a civilized nation which knows the difference between brave deceptions and those who are following the true line of democracy, consistent with fact and reality. I rest my case.

Respectfully,
Neil Adams