For the third consecutive week, the three PPP/C-nominated members of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) walked out of a statutory meeting after saying that poll preparations were not on the agenda.
“These people refuse to speak about elections,” PPP/C-nominated Commissioner Sase Gunraj lamented after he and his colleagues walked out.
Gunraj, Bibi Shadick and Robeson Benn had spent less than 15 minutes in the meeting and walked out during the discussion of “matters arising” from the minutes of last week’s meeting.
Government-nominated Commissioner Vincent Alexander told members of the media that immediately after the reading of the minutes, Shadick asked whether there was a work programme for the holding of elections.
After being informed that the work programme being followed related to house-to-house registration, Shadick led this week’s walkout.
An equally frustrated Alexander argued that by consistently walking out, the opposition-nominated commissioners are manufacturing the “constitutional crisis” they have been bemoaning.
“The next item on the agenda was correspondence and one of the pieces of correspondence is a proposal from Shadick with an election timeline. By walking out, they stymied discussion on their own proposal,” he stressed.
According to Gunraj, the government-nominated commissioners continue to maintain that house-to-house registration was “long in coming” and, therefore, needs to be conducted.
“They say we did not have the funds to do it, so now that we have the funds we have to conduct house-to-house,” a frustrated Gunraj explained, before adding that they also stressed that no funds were available for the holding of elections.
“If this argument of no money for elections is true, then the work of a constitutional agency is being stymied or fettered by the administration’s withholding of funds,” he stressed.
This standoff between the two factions of the commission continues two weeks after President David Granger urged GECOM to begin preparations for general and regional elections and said that government will initiate measures to make the required funding available.
In a February 25th letter to GECOM Chairman James Patterson, President Granger indicated that “the Government of Guyana is committed to doing everything possible to ensure that the commission is provided with the financial resources and has sufficient time to conduct credible elections.”
In another letter sent on the same day, he also requested a consultation on these preparations. This consultation was held last Friday and yielded no result.
The President told the nation that GECOM did not provide “the sort of guidance that we need to enable me as President to make a proclamation to actually announce a date” and requested that GECOM return to the drawing board to examine how quickly and how easily they could arrive at a consensual position.
Based on the successful December 21st, 2018 vote on a motion of no-confidence against government, elections are constitutionally due by March 21st. For this date to be extended, the support of the opposition PPP/C would be required in the National Assembly.
However, opposition leader Bharrat Jagdeo has declared that he will not pledge his party’s support unless a date is set within the life of the current voters’ list. The list expires on April 30th.
President Granger, however, has declared that it is evident from the evidence provided by GECOM that the list is bloated… given the size of our population and much attention is focused on sanitising that list.”
Government-nominated commissioners have consistently advocated this position, arguing that house-to-house registration is needed to sanitise this list before elections. According to Alexander, credible elections are not likely without a sanitised list. He said GECOM’s technical personnel can contract for such an exercise to be completed by November, 2019.
Chief Election Officer Keith Lowenfield has maintained that elections can be held within 148 days with a claims and objections period of 28 days to properly update the list.
