Dear Editor,
I write with utter disgust at the way the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) continues to handle the hiring of election day staff. I sacrificed two days of my time for training, believing that merit and fairness would guide the process. I have served before as a deputy returning officer (DRO), proving my capability. Yet, I was bypassed, and to this day, GECOM refuses to provide my scores — hiding behind bureaucracy while preaching transparency. How shameful! An elections body that should set the highest standard of integrity cannot even manage a fair hiring process.
But the rot goes deeper. Trainers — the very people tasked with teaching and evaluating us — somehow end up being appointed as DROs themselves. If this was always the plan, then why waste taxpayers’ money training 100 people for positions that were already earmarked? Why humiliate people by dragging them through a sham process? This is not only wasteful but reeks of favouritism, nepotism, and a clear conflict of interest. It is absurd to have someone training me while competing for the very post I applied for. That is not management — that is corruption by design.
No wonder Guyanese have lost faith in GECOM. How can the public trust an agency to manage national elections when it cannot even run its own employment process honestly? The commission talks about transparency and fairness, but in reality, it practices secrecy and discrimination. GECOM’s employment policy is nothing short of a betrayal of the very principles it is supposed to uphold.
If GECOM cannot fix this blatant abuse of power and favouritism, then it has no moral authority to lecture the public about trust and democracy.