Poll was a success - Elections Commission
Concerns raised over `disenfranchisement'
Stabroek News
March 20, 2001
Yesterday's crucial general elections have been declared a success by
the Elections Commission despite concerns over disenfranchisement and the
country will await with bated breath the results today and the reactions
of the main parties.
Confusion reigned yesterday over whether the polls
had been extended beyond the six o'clock deadline or not and many stations
up and down the coast stayed open in contravention of the stipulated
closing time. The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) had at one point
contemplated extending voting following an approach by the People's
National Congress REFORM (PNC/R) but later decided against it.
Up to
press time the PNC/R was still assessing voting and was hopeful over the
results while the PPP/Civic said it was sure that the glitches would not
detract from the final results. (See stories in this edition.)
Despite
the disenfranchisement of an unknown number of voters, chairman of the
Commission, Major General (rtd) Joe Singh told reporters at the
Commission's media centre at Tower Hotel that given the amount of work
that had been done by the Secretariat he believed that the polling day
exercise was a success. He said the counting of votes was going ahead as
planned last night at the various stations. (See some results obtained by
Stabroek News on page 18.)
He stressed at the 10 pm press conference
that the voter list system had to be reviewed describing it as archaic,
bureaucratic and fraught with the potential for errors.
About the delay
in the closing of poll, Singh explained that this had been done to allow
for the Commission to consider the representations of the PNC REFORM about
three categories of persons who had been unable to vote.
The three
categories were persons in possession of new national identification cards
but whose names were not on the Official List of Electors (OLE) or the
Addendum; persons who were on the list but not in the division or even the
district at times in which they lived; and persons in possession of
photographic stubs as evidence of a completed registration transaction.
Singh said the decision was taken following representations from two
members of the donor community who were convinced there was merit in the
representations being made by the PNC/R. Also they said that there was
need to defuse the tension that was building up as a result of the
dissatisfaction and frustration among those who genuinely felt that they
were being disenfranchised through no fault of their own. Stabroek News
understands that the two donor community representatives were UNDP
Resident Representative, Richard Olver and Canadian High Commissioner
Jacques Crete.
The Commission chairman said that to accommodate the
consultation with the other six members of the Commission, he requested
the Chief Election Officer (CEO)(ag), Gocool Boodoo, to have the polling
stations remain open until a decision on the representation had been
made.
The consultation by phone, the Commission chairman said began at
around 5:45 pm - poll were supposed to close at 6 pm - and by 6:18 pm a
decision had been made by a 4-2 vote not to extend the close of poll.
The Commission is comprised of six commissioners, three of whom: Dr
Keshav `Bud' Mangal, Moen McDoom SC and Mahmood Shaw were nominated by the
PPP/Civic and Lloyd Joseph, Haslyn Parris and Robert Williams by PNC
leader, Desmond Hoyte, in his capacity as Leader of the Opposition after
consultations with the leaders of The United Force and the Alliance for
Guyana.
Singh said that the CEO was advised of the decision against a
further extension and at 6:33pm he issued the order that the polls be
closed but that those persons still in the queue at that time should be
allowed to vote.
He acknowledged receiving reports that some polling
stations had been opened until 9 pm, and that the Returning Officer will
be submitting a report to the CEO on the reasons for the occurrence.
Singh asserted too that despite the delayed closure of the poll that
the timeline for the announcement of the unofficial preliminary results
would be around midday today with the final results being announced
sometime before midday on Thursday after a specially convened meeting to
receive them from the Chief Election Officer.
Singh acknowledged that
with a projected 95 per cent list accuracy some 22,000 persons were likely
to be disenfranchised and that of these 9,000 alone would be in Region 4,
which had a 192,000-voter roll. Observers point out that this projected
disenfranchisement would impact on all party strongholds in the same
way.
Singh said that the statistical reality did not take account of
the human dimension. He apologised to those who were disenfranchised but
stressed the need for a more sustained exercise at preparing for elections
rather than the episodic efforts that were traditionally made.
He
stressed that another two or three weeks of preparation would not have
made a dramatic impact on the number of those persons with ID cards who
were omitted from the Official List of Electors, those persons who were on
the list in divisions or even districts distant from those in which they
were normally domiciled and those with photographic stubs.
He explained
that one explanation for a person being listed in a division or district
other than one in which the person is normally domiciled could be that
when the photographic transaction was completed the Commission's staff was
not informed that the person had completed the rest of the transaction in
another district.
About persons whose transfers had not been effected,
Singh said that this could have been the result of the person not having
been on the list in the first place. As a result when the information
reached the Information Systems Department, the computer did not process
the name.
However, Singh acknowledged that errors had occurred as the
result of inaccurate fieldwork and encoding errors.
About the early
morning hiccups, the Commission chairman said that once the administrative
glitches were addressed, the polling proceeded smoothly, These glitches
related to the absence of indelible ink for staining the voters' fingers
and for the stamp pad as well as the six-digit stamp for identifying the
ballots.
He said that the turnout - as was anticipated - was heavy
overall especially in the morning in both the hinterland and coastal
regions.
Earlier, Boodoo said that the PNC REFORM's late approach to
Singh triggered the problem of the late closing of poll stations and
denied suggestions that the concerns raised by it had been largely ignored
by the Commission's secretariat. He explained that many of the complaints
made by the PNC/R had been addressed and the Secretariat had been able to
locate on the OLE a number of the names submitted to it.
But PNC
REFORM chairman, Robert Corbin, said that his party was disappointed that
the Commission had not addressed the same complaints, which had been
submitted to it some time before yesterday.
PPP/Civic officials shared
the Commission's assessment of the atmosphere in which the poll was
conducted.
PPP/Civic general secretary Donald Ramotar told a mid-morning Freedom
House press briefing at his party's media centre at Freedom House that
though there were hiccups that the voting was orderly. He said that the
hiccups could be attributed to the polling day staff taking some time in
getting to grips with their duties.
Dr Bheri Ramsarran, the PPP/Civic's
chief scrutineer who was with Ramotar told reporters about the procedural
inconsistency among the Presiding Officers as some were insisting on the
use of MRCs as a means of identification.
He said that he had been in
contact with the Commission so that it could assure the Presiding Officers
that once a person's name was on the list there was no need for the
MRC.
Dr Ramsarran also complained about being unable up to yesterday
morning to obtain Certificates of Employment for his party's polling
agents particularly those assigned to polling stations outside the
division in which they were registered. His PNC REFORM counterpart, PNC
general secretary, Oscar Clarke experienced the same difficulty.
Dr
Ramsarran said that he could not understand the delay since the names of
those involved had been sent to the Commission several weeks before but
that there had been some difficulty in finding the MRCs for some of
them.
About the absence of the six-digit stamp, Dr Ramsarran said that
his reports identified polling stations in Section K Campbellville and the
Smith Memorial School as among those without them.
Dr Ramsarran also
complained that activists of some of the political parties were breaching
the law prohibiting interference with voters in the queue while within 200
yards of the polling station.
He said too that there two or three cases
reported to the party of people who had been placed in their wrong
divisions and whom the party had assisted in finding the correct
divisions.
In addition to the unnofficial preliminary results, the
Carter Center is also expected to announce its preliminary findings
following the work of its 44-man team yesterday. The center was also
expected to do a quick count of the votes, the results of which would not
be made public.
Up to 2 am today, the Commission's media centre had
been unable to deliver results.