The Guyana Elections Commission (Gecom) was never officially informed by the relevant council officers that attempts to elect a Mayor and Chairpersons in the six local government areas where there were electoral ties resulted in stalemates, PPP/C commissioner Sase Gunraj says.
Gunraj was last night explaining why Gecom did not intervene after the councillors in the town of Mabaruma and five Neighbourhood Democratic Councils (NDCs) reached deadlocks in their attempts to elect leaders.
“Chief Election Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield has indicated that neither the acting town clerk of Mabaruma nor the overseer of any of the affected NDCs has informed the relevant returning officers that attempts to elect a Mayor or chairperson has resulted in a deadlock,” Gunraj told Stabroek News.
Following the March 18 local government elections, there were ties at the council level in Mabaruma, and the Woodlands/Bel Air, Malgre Tout/Meer Zorgen, Gibraltar/Fyrish, Industry/Plaisance and Woodlands/Farm NDCs. After voting, the councillors were unable to elect a mayor in the case of Mabaruma and chairpersons in the case of the NDCs and Communities Minister Ronald Bulkan subsequently stepped in and made the appointments.
Critics say that Gecom should have been proactive in determining whether there were deadlocks since it would have been aware that holding electoral runoffs would be a possibility as was the case in 1994 where there were several ties. The law governing ties has not been changed since then. In 1994, fresh elections were held by the Elections Commission in the deadlocked NDCs within weeks of the stalemate.
The APNU+AFC government has defended Bulkan’s decision to appoint the mayor and chairpersons in the contested areas, advancing a number of reasons for the move, although by-elections were not even considered by the government.
Gunraj told Stabroek News that once the PPP/C commissioners accessed the results of the recent polls in the Official Gazette, they noted that there were several areas where there was equality in the number of seats allocated to the PPP/C and the APNU+AFC coalition.
He noted that Commissioner Bibi Shadick, foreseeing that stalemates might develop in these areas, met with Lowenfield, Deputy CEO Vishnu Persaud and Legal Officer Juanita Barker to discuss the issue.
Gunraj stressed that this meeting, which was held in the last week of March, concluded with the understanding that the procedure to be followed was that which was outlined in Section 13 of the Municipal and District Councils Act.
The first meetings to elect council leaders in the affected areas were held on April 1, 2016. After those meetings ended in deadlocks, a second round of meetings was called. These too resulted in deadlocks and Minister Bulkan intervened by appointing a Mayor and chairpersons.
Though he believes that in being fair to Gecom it must be understood that they were stymied by the lack of official notification, Gunraj is still calling on Gecom to publicly state its position on the matter, which is now engaging the courts.
Following Bulkan’s appointments, the PPP/C moved to the High Court to challenge the appointments and Justice Diana Insanally has granted interim orders quashing the appointments.
The PPP/C arguments are based on Section 13(5) to 13(8) of the Act.
Section 13 (5) states, “If there are two or more candidates for election as Mayor, the Town Clerk shall take the votes of the persons who are entitled to vote at and are present at the meeting and shall declare the candidate who secures the greatest number of votes to be elected; and, if, the Mayor having been elected, there are two or more candidates for election as Deputy Mayor, the Mayor for the ensuing year shall declare the candidate who secures the greatest number of votes to be elected.”
Section 13 (6) states, “If there is no election under subsection (5) on account of an equality of votes the Town Clerk shall appoint a day not later than the 28th December in the same year for the election of the Mayor from among such candidates by the voters whose names appear on the register of voters for the time being in force for the City.”
Section 13 (8) states, “Where by reason of an equality of votes cast at the election by the voters no person is elected Mayor the Minister shall select one of the councillors receiving the greatest number of equal votes to be Mayor.”
In a statement on Saturday, Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo called on Gecom to act, while citing Gecom’s “bewildering silence and inaction” in the matter. It said that it is public knowledge that the PPP/C has launched legal proceedings and obtained a series of orders from the High Court quashing Bulkan’s decisions.
“These legal proceedings were filed not only to protect and defend the will of the electorate, but was also done to protect and preserve the Constitutional mandate of Gecom which is the authority that the Constitution has endowed with the exclusive responsibility in respect of and in relation to the conduct of the elections,” the statement said.
“Against this background Gecom’s silence and inaction amounts to a gross abdication of its constitutional responsibilities. It is obvious that were Gecom to assume its responsibilities, it will present some reprieve to this impasse. We call upon Gecom to snap out of this paralysis and begin to discharge its mandate now,” it declared.
Attempts by Stabroek News yesterday to reach Chairman of the Commission Steve Surujbally proved futile as did attempts to reach Lowenfield for comment.
