Votes by Disciplined Services personnel

Dear Editor,

I served in the GDF for twenty years and today I am a proud Veteran. I was president of the XGDF Association from 2008 to 2014, and now I am president of the Guyana Veterans Legion. I represent Veterans in Guyana and look after their interest.

Our serving soldiers and other members of the Disciplined Services do not have this type of representation, therefore, as a senior veteran, I take it on my own, to be their voice. Their voice is crying out loud against the effort by the PPP to have GECOM not count their votes in the current recount, because they are unstamped. PPP agents did not stamp the Disciplined Services ballots, as they were required to, after these ballots were taken to specific polling stations in the Regions on Elections Day.

That over eight thousand (8,000) Disciplined Services votes were not stamped in the PPP strongholds in Districts 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6, is not accidental or coincidental. This was a deliberate large-scale rigging attempt by the PPP.

Our members of the Disciplined Services are loyal and patriotic citizens, and it is their democratic right to vote and have their votes counted.

This is my call to GECOM to ensure our Disciplined Services votes are counted. This is an imperative.

Yours faithfully,

George Gomes

Lieutenant Colonel (retired)

President, Guyana Veterans Legion.

Editor-in-Chief’s note: Ballot papers are stamped by the Presiding Officer at the polling stations and not by party agents. There is no way to distinguish votes by Disciplined Services voters from any other voter in the current recount as these were mixed at the assigned polling stations. Therefore there is no basis for saying that over 8,000 ballots for Disciplined Services voters were not stamped. This is a highly irresponsible statement which has also been made by others. Thus far, only a small number of ballot papers have been discovered not to have been stamped.