No amount of unorthodox spin will be able to bamboozle the Guyanese electorate

Dear Editor,
Vincent Alexander, as a long-standing GECOM Commissioner, has information access and should know that:
1. GECOMS’ automated Crystal Report and List Management System, are linked to the GRO (General Registrar’s Office) database and are configured to deal with a variety of eventualities, including updates to the List and issues relating to snap elections. The institution’s budgets for Capital and Current appropriations always cater for this.
2. Given the constitutional supremacy and live intent, in the event of there being a conflict with any other existing legislation, the necessary adjustments have to be accommodated to bring the conflicting positions in line with the Constitution. It is therefore correct when CEO Lowenfield reported that the appropriations budgeted for House-to-House activities in 2019 could be used to run off the General and Regional Elections.
3. Registered persons who are 18 years old are automatically included in the Official List of Electors (OLE) by the automated system.
4. Subject to the submission by the GRO of the list of dead persons, the names are removed from the List after verification by GECOM.
5. The dead cannot vote and while they should be off the List, this is far from practical. Notwithstanding, GECOM and GRO can utilise the interim approach of public notice, to provide a deadline date for the submissions that would speed up the removals.
This time around, no amount of unorthodox spin will be able to bamboozle and bowl the Guyanese electorate. In the period leading up to 1992, the PNC of GECOM was used to give them an extra two years in Government. It was a time they hoped that the ‘freshly’ Desmond Hoyte Government would have won the Elections. However, such impetuous mal-handing of the electoral mechanism should never be repeated, and particularly when the APNU/AFC Government, with their unbearable taxes, crime, and the spiralling cost of living, seeks to impose their dictatorial, abusive use of power and blatant corruption practices.
The vicious spinner Alexander, at the GECOM end, is attempting to delay the inevitable Elections by pretending that fresh House-to-House registration is required. The present voters’ list is valid until the end of April 2019 and it was recently sanitised with the tenth continuous registration period, together with the Claims, and Objections Cycle. There were simply no objections up to November 12, 2019, for the Local Government Elections when the Government felt that its twisted scheming would fool citizens.
All the talks about seven years are rubbish, as it was the National Assembly that passed the Bill to make sure that the Register of registrants is valid for six months after the Claims and Objection Period. Further, it is GECOM and its commissioners who recognised the Continuous Registration process, as well as the CEO of the Secretariat who pronounced the list to be good enough for Guyana to have Elections.
Alexander knows that only small adjustments are required by GECOM and that these could be achieved to hold the constitutionally appointed National Elections on or before March 19, 2019. Charrandas Persaud, who was a leading Government personality contended that plans were afoot to pad the voters’ list using false Birth Certificates.
The conniving Mr Vincent seems to be creating time to facilitate this underhanded move and his pronouncements must be rejected by all Guyanese.
Sincerely,
Neil Kumar