By Johann Earle
The major groups contesting Monday’s elections have been engaging the visiting teams of observers to ensure their concerns are heard and that the missions have an understanding of the political landscape and many other dimensions related to the polls.
The various teams, including the Organization of American States (OAS), the Commonwealth Secretariat and the CARICOM Secretariat, have been arriving this week.
Executive Member of the Alliance For Change (AFC) Cathy Hughes said her party held discussions with members of the CARICOM contingent of observers and raised several areas of concern.
“We met with three members of the CARICOM observer group and because [the head of that mission was here in 2006, he is aware of some of the concerns of the parties],” she said.
“We gave them an update with regard to GECOM [the Guyana Elections Commission],” she said, adding that those attending the meeting along with herself and presidential candidate Khemraj Ramjattan were Clayton Hall, David Patterson and Dr. Rohan Somar.
Hughes said that the party members spoke of outstanding budgetary issues with GECOM and the payment to party scrutineer workers; the issue of voter education and misinformation; the locking out of polling day staff of the party at the last elections; and what the party termed the unfair treatment from the state media with regard to the airing of advertisements.
Hughes said the party indicated that it has written to GECOM and to the Advisory Committee on Broadcasting on the refusal of the state television channel to play the advertisements.
The PPP/C in a letter on Wednesday told the observer missions that the opposition parties were out to sow the seeds of racial disunity. The party then appealed for calm for the elections.
Speaking to the Stabroek News, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) prime ministerial candidate Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine said that the coalition’s representatives met with observer missions of the Organisation of American States (OAS) and the Commonwealth Secretariat yesterday.
“We spent a great deal of time pointing out the weaknesses of the voter education system,” he said, pointing out that on Monday, some members of the disciplined forces were confused as to why they were no six-digit number stamped on the ballots.
“We spoke of the violations of the [political party] Code of Conduct, the use of state resources, and inducement and bribery,” he said, while noting also that APNU put out a call for elections to be peaceful.
He said the observers paid rapt attention to the plans of the partnership and said that they were interested to know how a government of national unity would work.
However, according to Dr. Roopnaraine, the members of the observer delegations spoke of the experiences of other countries where national unity governments were formed without achieving the desired result. APNU representatives explained Guyana’s peculiar circumstances, which they said may cause the idea to work here.
Dr. Roopnaraine added that APNU also supplied a list of places where there might be what he described as “electoral creativity.”
Meanwhile, the Commonwealth Observer Group in a statement yesterday said that a credible and transparent electoral process is vital for democratic governance of Guyana.
Denis Marshall, the head of the Commonwealth Observer Group, urged all political parties and stakeholders to act responsibly, and to adopt a constructive approach to the entire electoral process to ensure peaceful elections.
According to the statement, Guyana is committed to uphold standards of democratic elections as a member of the international community, and of the Commonwealth, in which democracy and good governance are key values.
He said that the Observer Group’s role is to help strengthen the democratic development of Guyana by identifying benchmarks in best practices.
Marshall, a former Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Secretary-General, leads a 13-member team of Commonwealth citizens with a range of expertise and experience in governance, democracy, human rights, justice, rule of law and the media. They will examine whether conditions exist for free and competitive elections, and whether the electoral register provides for universal suffrage. The Group will also look, among other things, at the issue of a level playing field in the campaign process and level of impartiality of state apparatus and state-owned media.
Asked how it is the Commonwealth Observer Group will make an assessment of how level the playing field is, Marshall said, “The Commonwealth Observer Group’s interactions with interlocutors and their examination of legislation will inform their assessment of the electoral environment. The Commonwealth Observers bring with them the eyes of the international community and they come to Guyana at the invitation of the government. We have held meetings with members of GECOM, the Media Monitoring Unit, political parties, diplomatic community, civil society and the media to hear what they all have to say, which will help with our understanding of issues.”
The Commonwealth Observers will deploy to a variety of locations around the country on 26 November to observe the voting, counting and results processes. They will co-ordinate with other observers in the field to maximise the overview of the electoral process.
Chief of Mission of the Organization of American States (OAS) Elections Observer Mission (EOM) Professor Gordon Shirley stressed the independence of the OAS mission.
But he said when possible the OAS will coordinate with other election observation missions with respect to certain logistical matters. “For example, to ensure the broadest possible geographical coverage of the country we may coordinate election day activities to ensure that the OAS/EOM and other observations missions are able to visit as many polling places as possible while avoiding duplication,” said Professor Shirley.
