By Johann Earle
Head of the Commonwealth Observer Mission Denis Marshall says the group has concluded that Monday’s general elections represented a further strengthening of the democratic processes but the playing field for the poll campaign was not level, given that state resources, including state media, were used in the interest of the ruling party.
He was speaking at a press briefing held at the Cara Lodge yesterday where he presented the group’s main findings in an interim statement for its observing of the 2011 general and regional elections in Guyana on Monday. The Commonwealth team leader also identified the length of the results tabulation process and breaches in both the media and political parties’ codes of conduct as bugbears to the elections.
“The [November 28, 2011] elections were competitive, and basic freedoms of association, assembly and movement were provided for despite some isolated incidents the election campaign was generally peaceful. It was positive that the Code of Conduct for Political Parties was signed by all of the parties. However, concerns were raised with us that the Code was not wholly respected and that state resources were used in the interest of the ruling party,” he said.
Marshall said that the group found that a lack of independence and impartiality of the media remains a problem. “In particular, reporting from GECOM’s Media Monitoring Unit shows that state-owned TV radio and print media showed overt bias in favour of the government and ruling party in its coverage and news reporting,” Marshall said. “As a consequence of the overt media bias and the resources at the disposal of the incumbent, there was not a sufficiently level playing field for the campaign. While the development of codes of conduct for parties and the media is welcomed, it is not enough for them to merely be signed by stakeholders. Such codes must also be respected and, where necessary, include mechanisms for enforcement,” he said.
Marshall said that it is paramount that the counting process concludes in a timely and transparent manner to ensure accountability and to maintain confidence.
He said that because some of the Commonwealth observers are still out in the field, he and the other team leaders have not had a chance to hear from them yet so as to prepare a full list of recommendations for the country. “But clearly there could be more efficient processes and technically efficient processes put in place but the way forward is political consensus. It is important to build up trust and confidence so that the people and the key players are confident of the processes. I think the reason why this count has taken so long is because in the past there has been a certain amount of mistrust in the process. Therefore to deal with that mistrust there was quite a complex process put in place,” he said.
Voting day
Marshall said the teams reported that poll officials worked methodically to process voters and that GECOM was well prepared for the poll “and staff seemed on the whole to be well trained.” He said that when problems came up, the Returning Officers responded to resolve issues. “Based on our observations voters were free to express their will and security at the polling station, while visible and effective, was not intrusive.
“In some cases voters did have some difficulty identifying their correct polling station and were being redirected to other stations. There were sporadic reports of problems and a small number of isolated incidents did occur, notably in South Georgetown. These appear to have been dealt with well by the Police and tensions dissipated. However in one of these incidents, senior officials from the ruling party were involved, which was extremely unfortunate,” Marshall said.
Diligent
“From my observation I thought that the counting [at the polling stations] was extremely diligent and clearly there are more steps in the process to go,” he said, adding that it is the will of the people in the future that would enable the process to speed up.
“I listened (Tuesday) to the Chairman of GECOM at one of his press conferences and he said that in the attempt to be efficient the body had become inefficient. Here, in Guyana there is a desire to be absolutely 100 percent accurate in terms of counting the votes and achieve maximum transparency. In order to achieve that there have been some quite complex processes put in place and our teams were at the polling places observing the counts. It is quite a lengthy process. I know that the political parties want to ensure there is absolute transparency. I think there is greater confidence in the electoral process and it has moved forward a lot. Maybe in future elections the process will speed up but that is a matter of trust. [Because] the competitive nature of the parties exists, GECOM has put in place as best as it can a failsafe procedure. For that reason we have to have patience,” he said.
Marshall said that while it takes longer than most other places this is what is necessary to ensure transparency.
In the statement, Marshall said that Commonwealth teams followed the count at polling stations and reported that the process was transparent and that electoral officials worked diligently to complete the count at the polling station level. “The final aggregation of results is ongoing and has been affected somewhat by the large number of recounts requested by the PPP/C, but we continue to follow this critical aspect,” he said.
Asked whether it was the usual practice for a political party to call for a recount even though all of the votes have not been counted, Marshall said that while Guyana’s laws allow such a call, normally recounts are called for at the end of the process “if someone is very close in a constituency and maybe the votes are neck and neck.” The PPP/C yesterday withdrew its call for recounts.
Campaign financing
“We do believe that the whole [issue] of campaign financing needs to be tightened up. I think there has been a fairly liberal interpretation of the rules here and I think [this is] certainly one area where there could be reform in the future,” he said.
Marshall said that it is clear that there has been an enormous amount of government expenditure during the campaign. He said that the observer mission has heard reports of such expenditure on the part of Government and “we are very happy to receive as much information as we can about this.”
He said that an excessive use of state resources in terms of government announcements during elections campaigning is unhelpful to the process but not uncommon in other countries. “Governments and political parties would use their resources within the rules, but it then becomes a matter of what the people find acceptable rules for these things,” he said. He said that within the rules, such expenditure does not make the campaign unfair “but I think that we could make them more fair in the future.” He continued, “in fact, when you go to other countries, the government will manage its public announcements to help in the elections process. “It is legitimate…whether it is fair is another question,” Marshall said.
