The Guyana Elections Com-mission (GECOM) yesterday conducted a national consultation with local government elections stakeholders on issues associated with the delimitation of constituencies.
GECOM’s Chairman Dr Steve Surujbally, while addressing those gathered at the Carifesta Sports Complex during the opening session of the exercise, said that the event was strategically planned to follow a series of individual consultations which were conducted within Guyana’s existing Local Government Areas, which according to him, is in keeping with GECOM’s policy of openness.
He said that GECOM recognized the significance of interactive two-way dialogue in its quest to ensure stakeholder satisfaction and confidence where carrying out its mandate is concerned. He said that GECOM recognized that the stakeholders in their capacity of being “key stakeholders” would be equipped to make meaningful contributions that could influence the demarcation-of-boundaries process.
Surujbally reminded the participants that it was not GECOM’s responsibility to determine the number of seats or constituencies for any of the Municipalities or Neighbourhood Democratic Councils (NDCs) concerned but rather, these are determined by and made known by the Local Government Minister.
According to Surujbally, GECOM has met with Local Government and Regional Development Minister Kellawan Lall on two occasions to discuss “serious pertinent issues” which could affect the delimitation process one way or the other, and according to him, the commission has received the fullest cooperation of the Minister in this regard.
Deputy Chief Election Officer Calvin Benn stated that the process of demarcation is difficult and noted that the consultation exercises conducted thus far were carried out to ensure that the system would be acceptable to all stakeholders.
During the deliberations, officials from the commission secretariat shared with the participants the proposals and recommendations pertaining to the demarcation of constituencies, which GECOM stated, were influenced largely in part by the discussions carried out during the countrywide consultations over the past several weeks.
Representatives of several political parties, including the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) and the Alliance For Change (AFC) were present at yesterday’s forum, while various public sector groups and members of the public also attended to event.
On October 13, Minister Lall served on GECOM the necessary orders pertaining to the seats in the local government organs, the areas where elections are to take place and where the constituencies are to be demarcated.
The seats allotment ranges from 12 for small NDCs to twenty for larger ones, so that the constituencies will range from six to ten as the case may be while in the case of the Municipalities, the seats allotment ranges from 14 in the case of New Amsterdam to 30 in the case of Georgetown.
