With the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) estimating that there will be 2,785 polling places setup across the country on Election Day, the Presidential Candidate for the Alliance For Change (AFC), Nigel Hughes believes that in the spirit of “transparency,” the State should fund the deployment of polling agents from all political parties to those polling places.
At a recent press conference, Mr. Hughes said with the exception of the ruling People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), it would be virtually impossible for the parties in the opposition to field agents to the more than 2,700 polling places.
“If we are as wealthy as we are, we should say look, political parties, the State will fund your polling agents in all of the polling places because at the end of the day, you want a result that is credible, that the victor could feel comfortable with and that the loser is prepared to concede,” Hughes told News Source.
Apart from the polling agents, the September 1 General and Regional Elections will be observed by international, regional and even local observers.
Already, the Carter Center and the European Union have deployed Observer Missions to Guyana. The Organization of American States (OAS), the Commonwealth and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) will also be fielding missions to Guyana.
But notwithstanding the presence of those and other missions, Hughes is concerned that the foreign missions will not be able to observe the elections in the far and hard to reach areas of the country, since the focus is often on Region Four – the largest electoral district.
“Most of them tend to focus on Region 4 and Georgetown but… Are they going to be embedded in Chenapou? Are they going to be embedded in Chinoweing? Are they going to be embedded in Apoteri, because these are all areas, where Venezuelans have made their way onto the list. And so, it is not Region 4 only. It is all those areas, all those areas where we have seen a surge in the number of registrants who are particularly Venezuelans or of Venezuelan origin,” the AFC Presidential Candidate said.
He contends that the elections could be easily manipulated, particularly in the hinterland where there will be little to no observers present.
“If you steal two votes per polling booth, you are already at two seats. You have successfully stolen two seats, and so, 3000 boxes, two votes per box, you got yourself a seat for sure. So you don’t have to have large scale theft, and in the areas where you know the observers are not likely to attend, because observers have restrictions. Observers can only go to areas that their embassies say are safe. So, the observers may not want to go to Kako, they observers may not want to go to the Marudi Mountains because if there is a crisis they can’t take them out,” he reasoned.
The September 1 Elections will also be observed by the US Embassy, the British High Commission, the Canadian High Commission and the Private Sector Commission (PSC) among other international and local bodies.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login