On the matter of the voters’ list, it is the PPP who is unprincipled and not the opposition
I pen this letter in response to former President Donald Ramotar’s letter published in Sunday, October 23. 2022 edition of the Stabroek News, “The opposition has reneged on the 2007 agreement and has taken an unprincipled position on the voters’ list”. Mr. Ramotar cited an agreement between the government and the opposition political parties for houseto-house registration to form the basis for a new National Register of Registrants from which the voters’’ list be extracted. Since WPA was not a party to the agreement, I have no partisan interest in this matter. But as a political activist, I have a keen interest in the issue. I find the logic explicit in Mr Ramotar’s position, in suggesting that once a political agreement is structured, it is not subject to change.
No political agreement is binding forever. It is apparent that the former President doesn’t share that view. Neither does he question the negative experiences the country has had with the bloated voters’ list. His position contradicts the recommendation of the international observer missions to our elections - that there be a new voters’ list. And it’s the very position his party had advocated for in GECOM after its defeat in the 2015 elections. Now in office, the PPP has retreated from the consensual agreement reached in GECOM at the time that we needed a new voter list. This is now conveniently deemed as unprincipled action by the opposition. Ramotar and the PPP are seeking to cover their “nakedness” on the voters’ list by claiming Caribbean countries have a similar situation where the list is bloated.
Even if this is so, it is no justification for us not to correct our situation. The empirical evidence demonstrates that Caribbean countries’ elections don’t throw up the problems as Guyana’s
elections. Every country has to act based on its challenges. In our case, the bloated voter’s list is now a no! No! I end by contending that the PPP is unprincipled on this matter and not the opposition. The 15year-old agreement between the government and the opposition has outlived its usefulness. A new voters’ list is in the best interest of the nation. It is not in the interest of the rulers and the PPP, whose concern is not the well-being of the country, but the old game of a winner manipulating the electoral system, in this case the issue of the voters’ list, for maximum political advantage and domination.