Granger is promoting elections rigging

Sep 15, 2018 Letters

Dear Editors,
President Granger has been quoted as saying that the Carter-Price formula for selecting GECOM Commissioners has outlived its usefulness (KN Sept 1, 2018.) The formula was good enough for electing him into office though. Whether it has outlived its usefulness or not, it is the formula under which the nation is currently operating and President Granger was out of line to hand pick a Chairman of the Commission who is partisan to him.
He knew well that the balance of power under the Carter-Price formula rests with the Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission. The country will never forgive him and never again trust him. The only reason that he got away with this was because the people of this country did not take to the streets. Power rests in the hands of the people, not in politicians.
For President Granger to come now, after the fact, to call for reforms is just deceitful and a diversion. The PPP/C is already in the courts as a result of the corruption already happening inside GECOM with gerrymandering the boundaries. When we listen objectively to what the Opposition is saying, it is clear that electoral rigging is taking place with the full support of the Political Parties in government. What a shame and disgrace.
When you have to rig elections, it means nobody wants you. Get out. The people of this country are fed up of being oppressed by corrupt politics. This kind of deceitfulness would never happen if Lawrence Lachmansingh, for example, was the Chairman of GECOM. The President knew exactly what he was doing when he hand-picked the Chairman of the Elections Commission.
What President Granger does not realise is that upholding democracy is the concern of the People of this Nation, not only a concern for the political parties. Is local Government Elections only a matter for politicians?
Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that the ‘political consensus’, that the President is calling for, around reform of the Carter-Price Formula decides that Guyana will have an Independent Elections Commission, much like Trinidad and Tobago’s Election and Boundaries Commission, will the President hand pick those independent Commissioners too?
Seeing that the Leader of the Opposition’s 18 outstanding members of Guyanese society were not ‘fit and proper’ to rig elections?
Sincerely,
Sandra Khan

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