The AFC says it is being forced to withdraw from mounting scrutineers for the house-to-house registration exercise and blames the elections commission for ignoring a court order which instructed it to allocate monies equitably to the parties to offset scrutineering expenses.
The registration exercise starts on Monday but according to Alliance For Change (AFC) leader Raphael Trotman “the stark reality is if we don’t get money we can’t participate.”
GECOM has maintained that it has no role in the apportioning of scrutineers amongst the opposition Parliamentary parties. As such the funds for opposition scrutineers wpuld be allotted to the opposition as a whole and it would be up to them to divide up the funds.
As a result, GAP/ROAR’s Everall Franklin and AFC’s David Patterson filed an action in court since they felt that GECOM’s decision gave rise to concerns that their parties may be excluded from financing for their scrutineers.
The commission, the PPP/C and the PNCR were ordered to respond to the matter but failed to do so and Justice Jainarayan Singh Jnr made the order absolute based on documentation provided by the two MPs.
AFC Chairman Khemraj Ramjattan told the media yesterday at a press conference that GECOM has since filed an appeal against the high court order and he argued that an appeal did not stay a judge’s ruling which should be adhered to until such time that there is a ruling from the court of appeal.
He said the two parties are strongly of the view that GECOM had the power and obligation under the constitution and the election laws to allocate on a proportional basis the monies provided by parliament for scrutineering activities.
Ramjattan said since the order has been made and notice thereof brought to the attention of GECOM there has been absolutely no response except a “disrespectful and disdainful silence.”
“GECOM has continued to publicise the commencement of the house to house exercise to commence on Monday January 7, 2008 whilst making no mention or arrangement for the inclusion of the AFC and GAP/ROAR to observe the process as ordered,” Ramjattan contended.
The party added that none of the GECOM commissioners had spoken out about the injustice being meted out against the two parties.
Ramjattan said too that GECOM and its chairman need to be reminded that they are servants of the people and have no authority to disregard orders of the court.
Meanwhile, Trotman said that with this deliberate attempt to refuse the party the right to participate in the process, the AFC now reserved the right to condemn a list born out of the process in the future.
“Then we can’t give a blanket approval to the list if we are not allowed to scrutinize the process,” he said.
Further, Trotman argued against GECOM’s appeal action and questioned whether the commission should have been the one taking that step. “
