Former chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (Gecom) Dr Steve Surujbally believes that the best person to replace him would be a judge, if the candidate qualifies as “fit and proper.”
“If you can have a judge, ‘fit and proper,’ having all the positive elements in his behaviour [and] in his moral makeup then yes, that will be the best person to have,” Surujbally, who ended a 15-year term as the Gecom chairman yesterday, told reporters in response to a question at a news conference.
“It tells me that the focus of the framers was in fact to have a judge…,” he said, while referencing Article 161(2) of the constitution, which has been the source of disagreement for President David Granger and Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo.
Surujbally said that there are judges and lawyers who can take the job but “the issue for me, the crucial words for me would be fit and proper.”
With Surujbally formally indicating to President Granger his intention to resign from Gecom with effect from November 30, 2016, the president and Jagdeo have been at an impasse over the criteria for the post.
Article 161(2) of the constitution states, “Subject to the provisions of paragraph (4), the Chairman of the Elections Commission shall be a person who holds or who has held office as a judge of a court having unlimited jurisdiction in civil and criminal matters in some part of the Commonwealth or a court having jurisdiction in appeals from any such court or who is qualified to be appointed as any such judge, or any other fit and proper person, to be appointed by the President from a list of six persons, not unacceptable to the President, submitted by the Leader of the Opposition after meaningful consultation with the non-governmental political parties represented in the National Assembly.”
Jagdeo had submitted the names of six prominent citizens after extensive consultations with 30 civil society organizations, representing major sections of society. They were chartered accountant and lawyer Christopher Ram; business executive Ramesh Dookhoo; author, Indian rights activist and columnist Ryhaan Shah; historian Professor James Rose; governance and peace practitioner Lawrence Lachmansingh; and former Chief of Staff of the Guyana Defence Force and mining executive Norman McLean.
However, a few days later, Granger announced at a media brunch that he would not accept the nominees. “The list that was sent to me was unacceptable,” the president had declared as he went into reading Article 161 (2) of the Constitution to justify his stance.
The president stressed that none of the candidates was a former judge or someone eligible to be appointed as a judge.
Surujbally, who presided over the 2006, 2011 and 2015 general elections and the 2016 local government elections, said he does not think that selecting a chairman should take so long. He also noted that even though he did not have legal training, he does not believe that it had affected the way he had done his job as chairman.
He pointed out that when he came in he “did not know anything about elections; you learn as you go. Some people hit the ground running. Would you say that our best chairpersons or chairmen of the elections management body who were lawyers were the greatest?”
Besides, he said, “you have a whole heap of people helping you and you can retain a legal counsel” and that “my own legal officer was sharp as a razor.”
He said too that he looked at the CVs of the nominees for the position as chairman and has seen some “hotshots.”
Some of the advice he would give to his successor is to be “resolute, fearless, be quite prepared to tell a president or a leader of an opposition, [though] not crudely, no or yes….”
He said too that the new chairman could carry out some of the things that he did not succeed in delivering on, such as having information technology play a greater role in the future for registration, voting, counting and transmission of results, and establishing a new Gecom complex.
He said he would also advise his successor to pursue a course at the University of Guyana on elections management.
When asked what his greatest successes were, he mentioned the introduction of the continuous registration process, and the conduct of a new house-to-house registration that the Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield spearheaded on the ground.
