By GHK Lall- According to GECOM, the voters’ list is 757,715 strong. Extraordinary. If from a total population of 800,000, that is even more extraordinary with 94.71 percent of Guyanese eligible to vote. If from a population of 850,000, it is a voter cohort of 89.14 percent. Not as mindboggling, but still impressive. I question nothing, be it from process utilised to the numeracy skills of anyone. But in trying to keep the mind agile, I have some innocuous inquiries for the record.
Is that 757,715 brigade all Guyanese born? How many are from under that mystery category of 1-year eligibility due to their country of origin? A very generous consideration, I should say. Third question, what does the secret census say about the number of people living here?
Though two years stale and growing more ancient by the day, it would still give a gauge, a starting point, a basis from which to criticize or subscribe to this 757,715 GECOM package. For the time being, I give short thrift to dead people still to be purged from the records of GECOM.
No disrespect to the dead is intended, let me assure everyone. But, as seen, I am having a spot of trouble reconciling my mind around this beauty of a figure -757,715. Is that some prime number, vital statistic, or what! I hint at nothing that has any relation to “bloated list(s)” as clamored over, bandied about. Though I have an idea or two, that’s a battle best left to others to fight. But, the GECOM number does look a tad on the blown up side, from a layman’s point of view. I am sure that many Guyanese will agree.
I look at this from another direction. Are there no little children-infants, toddlers, preteens, early teens-left in this country” Are all of adult vintage? If there are still children, how many of them are they? Reports are that over 15,000 Guyanese children sat for the 2025 NGSA and at last count, over 12,000 for CSEC and CAPE. However, there are all those little ones below 11-12, and those bigger ones somewhere between 16 and under 18 years of age.
Working backward or forward, and using only the NGSA, CSEC, and CAPE numbers, that is 27,000 plus 757,000 for a total of 784,000 mostly locals, give or take a couple of heads. The question of the day is this: what is a ‘couple’? Like the dearly departed from this vale, I discount those other Guyanese who keep the outgoing tide in motion via the US Consulate. How many have been lost, so to speak, and how many gained through new arrivals? Either via bouncing babies of both genders, and outsiders bouncing across the borders.
The point of all this is to make sense of, gain some comfort from, this staggering 757,715 making it into the GECOM voter list. This has to be one hell of a youthful, enduring, and lushly productive population to deliver a voter total, like the one just announced. When a country has an eligible voting population, as officially recognized, of such proportions, then this is out of this world. I have heard of elections in Egypt and Pakistan and parts of Africa, where the election winner grabbed upwards of 98 percent of those casting the ballot (the ballot, not a ballot), and always took those with a thick pinch of salt.
Take it from me, the thicker the pinch, the bitterer the swallowing experience. But I must admit that it looks like GECOM did those high performing countries named one better. Even before a single ballot paper is marked in one voting booth, the voter population is in the 90 percent range, depending on the total citizens estimated. When official numbers are hard to come by, as a matter of official policy, then this is the barren territory to which a poor student is confined. That is, making do with public, nonmaterial, information to build as close to an airtight mesh as possible around what is put out. And celebrated quietly in some quarters.
From my days of being close to insider trading on Wall Street, I have developed an antenna that could smell a rat in a hurricane, and which also has a familiar feel for what Guyanese call ‘rattishness.’ I leave it to the wisdom of Guyanese friends and foes to decipher what kind of antenna smells and feels. Before going my way, I extend hearty congratulations to the wisemen and women of GECOM for a slap-bang, shebang, of an eligible Guyanese voters list. Even I am forced to admit that it is one for the ages. It is going to be that kind of elections from now to September 1. I hope that nobody tries to embarrass by asking what happens thereafter.
