Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Chairman Justice (Ret’d) James Patterson has written to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in relation to recommendations by a United Nations (UN) Needs Assessment Mission (NAM) on technical assistance to aid in voter registration and the general elections process in 2019 and 2020.
A GECOM commissioner told Sunday Stabroek that Patterson “has finally written a letter to the UNDP in respect of the matter.”
The commissioner said Patterson disclosed that he had written to the UNDP at last Tuesday’s statutory meeting of the elections commission.
“Any substance that I could recall basically said that GECOM or the Chairman did not expect that the UNDP would have gone forward with any particular process without advice or understanding of GECOM itself,” the commissioner said
The commissioner was not aware of a response to the letter.
When Patterson was contacted two weeks ago, he had said that there had been no movement on the issue and that “When there is, you will be informed.”
Patterson has been criticised by Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo for delaying in engaging the UNDP after GECOM requested its help.
The NAM had recommended that for the November, 2018 Local Government Elections and the 2020 General Elections, the UN must provide technical assistance to GECOM in a clear framework. It had recommended that the parameters, responsibilities and limitations need to be properly communicated to stakeholders and the public in general because of widespread mistrust among political actors across public institutions, “including GECOM.”
The NAM recommended that priority areas of assistance should include database management, systems design, software development to improve the integrity of GECOM’s database, including voter registration and a solid results transmission system.
The NAM’s recommendations were communicated to GECOM about two months ago.
The UNDP, the local representative of the UN agencies in Guyana, had offered GECOM some assistance and had indicated a willingness to meet with GECOM chairman on the way forward.
