The opposition alliance’s list of candidates submitted on Nomination Day was embarrassingly short of the constitutional requirement that one-third of the persons be women.
That April 7th oversight had to be corrected before the APNU+AFC list was finally cleared by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) but the elementary error raised questions about the management of the campaign and its emphasis on improving the lot of women.
APNU Executive Dr Rupert Roopnaraine told Stabroek News that the lack of gender balance on the original coalition List of Candidates presented on Nomination Day at City Hall was extremely unfortunate given the party’s platform and advocacy of women’s rights.
He told Stabroek News that a miscalculation resulted in the blunder and that “there was no shortage of women candidates” available to the alliance.
Roopnaraine stated that the individual parties in the alliance presented their lists and that the culled list was then vetted by the coalition resulting in the unfortunate blunder. He said that the revised list which comprised of the names of 20 additional women was handed over to GECOM’s Chief Election Officer within a day because there was a wide selection of qualified women on the primary and secondary lists.
The Alliance For Change’s General Secretary, David Patterson said that the coalition was aware of the requirement for the candidates’ list. He said that once the error was flagged the coalition was fully prepared to present a revised list fulfilling the one-third requirement.
Patterson relayed that of the 22 persons added to the list the 20 women now meant that the Candidates’ List was over 40 percent women as well as racially diverse.
Chief list scrutineer for the coalition, APNU’s Amna Ally said that the coalition had fulfilled its legal requirements when Stabroek News reached out for a comment on the matter and asked how such an error was allowed to pass internal vetting. Ally said that was an internal matter and she would not be giving any details into the internal dynamics.
She said that “I don’t have any time for anyone who saying we are not championing women’s rights because of this.”
Ally said that APNU and the PNC have always had more than one-third female representation throughout the 8th to the 10th parliaments.
The coalition’s Presidential Candidate, David Granger as well as the AFC’s Cathy Hughes recently participated in a forum at the Theatre Guild on youth and women. Both politicians spoke about empowering women through entrepreneurial education reform as well as protecting victims of abuse by reforming the police.
