It is clear that the PPP/C government is reeling from its public shaming over the refusal to call local government elections. Why else would its nominees on the Guyana Elections Commission suddenly issue a statement like they did on Saturday urging caution on the question of local government?
It is all part of a scripted response to the growing and valid calls for the PPP/C to fulfil its constitutional obligation to convene local government elections. First, in her now infamous bushwhacking of the US Ambassador, Minister Manickchand posited that the envoy was not fully informed of GECOM’s position. This line was then followed up in a TV programme by the Presidential advisor on governance, Ms Teixeira. Earlier, it was one of the lame excuses offered by the General Secretary of the PPP/C, Mr Rohee on why the elections could not be convened and has been repeated at a recent press conference. As if on cue, the three commissioners Messrs Fazal Mohamood, Keshav Mangal and Athmaram Mangar have now delivered an argument for the government to cling to in its desperate quest to deny people the right to vote after 20 years.
If this is the best that the government and ruling party can do then they are hopelessly bankrupt and unable to bring any coherence or sense as to why the government is violating a fundamental tenet of any democracy.
This newspaper has oft criticised the composition of GECOM for the very reason that at the most delicate and crucial times its members hunker down in their respective political camps and the deep-seated divisions resume. It doesn’t appear to be any different now and GECOM will no doubt have to deliberate on the matters raised by the trio and convince the public of its readiness for local government elections even if only by a majority vote.
The PPP/C-nominated commissioners listed the following concerns on Saturday:
* Constituency boundaries and demarcation issues:
-Some constituency boundaries cut across established Divisions and Sub Divisions requiring field operations to effectively allocate existing registrants on the National Register of Registrants to a unique Constituency.
– Resolution of transfers of numerous electors particularly to constituencies indicated in the above point.
– Some constituencies do not have adequate registrants to effectively field adequate lists of candidates.
– The analysis of the National Register of Registrants and subsequent printing of lists for Local Government Elections require operations that involve the Information Technology Division which is without key top level and appropriate staff.
*There are also some key legislative issues including lacunae in Laws that govern Local Government Elections.
*There needs to be a vigorous education programme to inform and educate the populace on the new local government elections system, which comprise a mixture of the Constituency and Proportional Representation models, in which political parties as well as individuals and interested groups may contest the elections.
*The process to compile and analyze five hundred and eighty five sets of nomination lists resulting in five hundred and eighty five vetted two part ballot templates and subsequent printing of ballots will require significant time, effort and resources.
All of the issues raised by the commissioners would be routine in any electoral system of this type and once the technicians under the command of GECOM are discharging their responsibilities there should be no problem settling them unless it is the intention of the PPP/C to filibuster. With GECOM being a permanent full-time body, one wonders why the three commissioners hadn’t prior to Saturday’s statement gone public on these matters and urged immediate attention. From 2012 onwards these commissioners should have been repeatedly pressing their case at GECOM meetings and with the public knowing full well that their party had committed to holding local government elections within a year of the 2011 general election. Instead, they sat silently. It would be instructive if the three were to issue to the public a detailed report on their representation at GECOM over the last two years on the issues raised on Saturday. If they can present this, it would have meant that they had failed to have any positive impact at GECOM on arrangements for these elections.
It is becoming more evident with each passing day that the ruling party and the government are unwilling to give the word for local government polls for the fear of a mauling in Georgetown and elsewhere. On the other hand, they aren’t keen either for general elections to solve the stalemate gripping the country as they could end up in a worse position. So the government intends to use the period before it is required to call new general elections to prospect for better electoral vantage points and propaganda gains. In the meanwhile, local government elections will be denied. The government may have thought that the Rodney inquiry would give it greater leverage. So far, however, while the PNC and some of its lieutenants have taken a drubbing as expected, the PPP/C has come across as a stodgy, indifferent and ineffective player during the Rodney period compared to the brave challenge mounted by the WPA to Burnham’s excesses. This will hardly help its public image.
It bears repeating many times over until it becomes viral that the PPP/C has separated itself from its acclaimed past of championing the calls for national and local elections. While cynics may say these calls were underpinned by its knowledge that the ethno-political dynamics would have always worked in its favour, history will record that the PPP led a vigorous and ultimately successful campaign for free and fair elections in 1992 which went as far as pressing for US aid to be cut off to the Hoyte government and a host of other types of intervention by Washington and Capitol Hill. The tide has come full circle and the PPP/C has now shamelessly adopted some of the same tactics of the Hoyte administration which once famously claimed that counting at the place of poll would present a “logistical nightmare”. Some of the issues raised by the PPP/C commissioners have this same bent to them.
The people and the stakeholders who have been denied elections for no good reason have to stand up and demand their rights. Some of the very methods employed by the PPP in the early 1990s have to be utilised. Regional groupings and the broader international community have to be enlisted in this undertaking. Caricom, the OAS, the Commonwealth and the United Nations must be pressed and importuned with petitions and dossiers exposing the government’s duplicity on this score. MPs from the European Parliament and western capitals should be lobbied to press Georgetown to stop denying people the right to vote. The opposition groups in parliament have to begin doing real work on behalf of all of the people.
Whether President Ramotar will be hailed in future as a democrat and a proponent of the full range of rights under the constitution will be largely determined by what he does about local government elections.
