Chief Elections Officer Gocool Boodoo has proceeded on leave ahead of the expiration of his contract and the Guyana Elections Commission (Gecom) is still to take a decision on its renewal, which opposition-nominated members oppose.
A source within Gecom said that the review process to consider Boodoo’s tenure and his request for a contract renewal is not yet complete. His contract’s expiry date is April 30.
Stabroek News has been told that opposition-nominated commissioners are against Boodoo’s contract renewal, following an initial miscalculation of the November 28, 2011 poll results that would have seen the PPP/C declared the winner by an outright majority.
PPP/C-nominated commissioner Dr Keshav Mangal, in a letter to the editor published earlier this month, said all commissioners agreed that Gecom Chairman Dr Steve Surujbally must present them with his evaluation for their consideration as well as any warning letter and any correspondences he would have sent to Boodoo during his tenure, so they can arrive at a fair evaluation that fulfils the tenets of natural justice.
“I also pointed out that the incumbent must be given a hearing and all commissioners agreed,” he noted, while adding, “This issue is still be debated.”
It was a unanimous decision that all appointments/renewals of contracts for senior level staff must come before the full commission for its evaluation and appointment, Mangal noted, while adding that decisions on appointments are to be guided by recommendations from Heads of Department.
Following the declaration of election results on December 1, 2011, one of the commissioners confirmed that Boodoo wanted to declare the PPP/C winners of the elections by a majority. He had miscalculated the allocation of seats in the National Assembly, but this was corrected after a commissioner objected, noting that “it was obvious” something was not right with the results.
The miscalculation was subsequently accepted unanimously as an error by the commissioners and Surujbally subsequently said he had accepted that it was nothing but a human error until he saw proof to the contrary.
“What is of such great import is that the system worked… the system worked,” Surujbally told Stabroek News. “The moment it was given, the commissioners realised something was wrong and one commissioner, who is an author of the methodology, raised his hand and said could we go through this step by step, and of course I acquiesced immediately and we went through it and realised that the calculation was wrong,” he said.
The seat allocation was then adjusted accordingly and the commissioners gave the CEO approval to make the final declaration, resulting in the combined opposition having one seat more than the government.
