The permanent Guyana Elections
Commission was established by the constitutional reform process just after the
2001 elections; our first choice of a permanent Elections Commission chairman
was Dr. Steve Surujbally, a veterinarian trained in Eastern Europe. So my
impression was that since Surujbally would have spent a substantial part of
this life in countries where there is no democracy or free elections this may
have been a mistake.
The elections commission Chairman gets a salary and conditions which are
better than any judge in the Supreme Court, since he is expected to be
presiding over free and fair democratic elections in this country and as such
he must be totally impartial, Just as any proper Judge should be, and so it was
with some concern that I saw in September 2002 that Surujbally was writing
articles in the newspaper and having open confrontations with Jerome Khan, an
executive member of the PNC.
I was then forced to remind Surujbally that as the Chairman of the Elections
Commission he was in effect a judge, bound by time honoured traditions, conventions
and customs and that he must behave accordingly, since if he did not do so, he
would bring his reputation and impartiality into question, so these open
confrontations with the PNC in the media was completely out of place. In that
commentary I also commented on Suyrujbally's eastern European concept of free
speech; and I will now quote from my commentary first aired in September 2002.
"The chairman of the Elections Commission is a full time
constitutional appointment, at what can only be described as a very huge salary
and conditions for this country, no Judge in this country gets anywhere near
what he is getting, he must first of all be completely impartial in the way he
will supervise and conduct our elections, i.e. he must have no other agenda and
he must be capable of enforcing the constitutional and other laws that govern
our electoral process.
Unfortunately not understanding his mandate, our chairman of
GECOM felt it necessary to tell Sir Paul that and I quote him " GECOM has
a very important role in contributing towards sustainable democracy" [no
problem here, Doc] but he then goes on to tell the goodly gentleman that
sections of the media have been accused of quote "being conduits of malice
and agitators of discontent" he then tells Sir Paul that and I quote him
again "one recognizes the perpetual arguments between unbridled freedom
for the media to operate and accusations of media muzzling. But it should be
preferred at this time in our history and development, to consider advocating
appropriate restriction so that anarchical tendencies could be nipped in the
bud" is Dr. Surujbally serious? The only bud that needs nipping here is
his.
This man was appointed to ensure that we have free, fair and
democratic elections in this country and he is telling the Commonwealth
Secretary General through Sir Paul that he will preside over free, fair and
democratic elections but we should make arrangements to muzzle the media and
remove their democratic right to freedom of speech?
Incredibly he does not stop there, he goes on to tell Sir
Paul that and I quote him "Sir Paul should look at the major players in
the political scenario with the view to understanding historical and current
structures of their respective parties and to suggest to them, to void
themselves from intransigent and hate filled elements, in other words we are
suggesting that you advise the leading politicos to concentrate on cultivating
doves instead of hawks" ladies and gentlemen I have been condemning the
current crime situation in this country as vehemently as any of you but what
does all of this have to do with Surujbally? Surely he must understand that it
is not appropriate for the chairman of GECOM to be uttering such
interventionist nonsense. End quote.
Surujbally has been Chairman of the elections commission for nearly 5
years, during that time the elections commission has nothing to show in terms
of its functional achievement, there has been no on going registration, there
has been no updating of The electoral lists, there has been no new significant
registrations, not one neighborhood Council election was held, not one regional
election was held, not one municipal election was held but from 2002 to now the
election commission spent the following amounts; in 2002 they were allocated
691 million they spent 172 million, in 2003 they spent 202 million in 2004 they
spent 226 million in 2005 they spent 857 million; that is a total of 1.4 billion
Guyana dollars over the past 4 years and they produced noting! I want to tell
Surujbally that all of these lapses renders him in breach of the oath he took
as elections commissioner, and I don't much care to hear excuses, you
Surujbally swore to perform your constitutional function without fear of favor
and if you were not being given the tools to do the job, it was your
responsibility to have raised a huge furor in the media. I am therefore holding
you, personally, responsible for this mess.
Also ladies and gentlemen the only time I heard from this election Commission
chairman was when he brought teams of people here form all over the world to
tell us what naughty boys, we the media operatives in Guyana were, and how we
should behave in a democracy during an election, but not once did our claims
that the state owned media were being used exclusively as a propaganda machine
by the ruling party openly condemned by Surujbally, notwithstanding that the Tim
Neal and the elections Commission Chairman from Africa said that it was a gross
inequity unheard of anywhere else!
You see ladies and gentlemen only we in the media were irresponsible and
purveyors of unrest, not the ruling party and their stranglehold on the state
owned media, the betrayals in the dialog, the constitutional reform process and
the communiqué, those betrayals in Surujbally's opinion were not contributing
to the unrest and discontent in Guyana, only the media who were pointing out
these inequities were. We were supposed to stay silent and let the PPP walk all
over the opposition, the media and the constitution, that's Surujbally's
interpretation of fair play.
All of this told me that he was not impartial but that he wanted
peaceful elections despite the inequities that existed and had no intention of
righting them by telling Sir Paul Reeves what the situation really was and I
became convinced that we were probably not going to get a fair election with
out a fight.
As a direct result of his not performing his duty to ensure that the
election commission, including the other commissioners, perform their/its
function in the interest of this nation, we are all now left in total
confusion, we don't know if we have a list that can take us to an election, we
do not know what the actual situation is with verification, we do not know what
the situation is with the biometrics, all we are seeing is more confusion with the
three newspapers telling us totally different things as usual, the Chronicle
tells us that elections before august 4th is likely, Stabroek news tells us
that elections before August 4th is not likely and the Kaiteur
elections before August 4th is impossible! The PPP who are as
unpopular as they can possibly be at this time, want elections now, why is
that? Not being a very trusting person I want to know what they have in mind.
We had enough electoral rigging in this country.
