Alexander’s letter is a desperate attempt to create mischief, to misinform and to rabble-rouse
Apr 10, 2025
Dear Editor
I found Mr. Vincent Alexander’s letter on the court’s decision to dismiss Ms. Carol Joseph’s case on the Elections Commission in the “Stabroek News” of April 6, 2025, to be disingenuous.
It is dangerous too since Mr. Alexander is a member of the Elections Commission for many years and he must know that his arguments are based on selected information and did not give the whole picture.
It could also be considered disrespectful to describe the ruling of the Chief Justice (ag) as “myopic”. In passing 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 is really myopic because it seems as 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. Since then, the PNC has been doing its darnest to weaken the process. Even when their proposals were accepted but they lose 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 the report stated 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 clothed his arguments with a lot of fluff. Using statements such as “Residing and Claiming an address are not conterminous.”
What Mr. Alexander is trying to obscure is 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’s officials alone but by scrutineers of the governing party and the opposition parties as well.
Therefore, every person on the voters list was verified, so too was 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 in producing realistic plans and programmes to capture the imagination of the people and cease their campaign of disinformation.
Regards
Donald Ramotar
Former President
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