The bill to postpone Local Government Elections (LGE) is likely to be re-laid almost immediately following the parliamentary recess, according to President Donald Ramotar.
Ramotar had previously refused to assent to the Local Authorities Elections (Amendment) Bill, which is needed to legally postpone Local Government Elections (LGE) in any given year, after the parliamentary opposition amended it to cater for the run off of the polls by August 1.
Local Government Minister Norman Whittaker recently told Stabroek News that Cabinet was yet to discuss a new bill on a timeframe for local government polls. He added that while LGE are important, his interactions with a wide cross-section of Guyanese has convinced him that it is not very high on the list of priorities for Guyanese. Bread and butter issues, he said, are more important.
However, last Friday Ramotar acknowledged the importance of the legislation and said it is likely that the bill will be brought almost immediately after the parliamentary recess ends on October 10th.
The polls have been postponed since 1997, although they are constitutionally due to be held every three years.
As a result, legislation was/is needed to legally postpone the holding of the polls one year at a time.
The last piece of legislation legally postponing LGE expired last December. Government subsequently moved to pass the Local Authorities (Elections Amendment) Bill 2014, which proposed that the elections be postponed until December 31st or a date before but both APNU and the AFC used their majority to amend it to require the elections by August 1st or any date before.
Government did not support the amendment and after it was passed it languished in the office of the Chief Parliamentary Counsel (CPC) in the Attorney General’s Chambers for some time before it was sent to Ramotar, who eventually declined on June 2nd, 2014 to affix his signature on the grounds that the Guyana Elections Commission (Gecom) had publicly declared that it was impractical to hold local government elections on or before August 1. Had the bill been swiftly assented to by the President, elections could have been possible by August 1st based on Gecom’s timetable.
Gecom Commissioner Vincent Alexander has suggested that the president should have signed the legislation passed by the National Assembly and allowed Gecom, based on its readiness, to decide whether the August 1 date was practical. Alexander suggested that the president intentionally waited until the last possible moment to say he would not sign the bill because of Gecom’s inability to make the necessary preparations.
Observers say that once the President had signified his non-assent, it behooved the government to immediately bring a new bill. Ramotar had also refused his assent to the Local Government (Amendment) Bill which was part of a suite of four bills initially promoted by government and the opposition parties as instrumental for local government reform and, eventually, local government elections.
However on November 6th 2013, three month after the bills – the Fiscal Transfers Bill 2012, the Municipal and District Councils (Amendment) Bill, the Local Government Commission Bill and the Local Government (Amendment) Bill – were passed, Ramotar assented to all but the aforementioned bill. The bill contains several provisions with which the government has issues and Cabinet Secretary Roger Luncheon had expressed hope that time would resolve whatever issues exist.
There have hardly been any talks on a way forward with regard to the bill since last year. Further, the possibility of local government elections has taken a back seat to moves for early general elections, heralded by the intentions of the opposition parties to pass a no-confidence motion against the government.
