President David Granger is expected to soon announce a date for new elections based on a recent briefing from the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) and opposition leader Bharrat Jagdeo has already indicated that the timeline proposed by the body is “totally unacceptable,” while maintaining that the government would become illegal from today.
In a letter to Jagdeo, dated March 20th, 2019, Minister of State Joseph Harmon stated that he had been instructed to inform “that His Excellency the President intends to shortly name a date for general and regional elections in Guyana within the framework provided by the Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission.”
The letter references a correspondence from GECOM Chairman James Patterson to Granger in which he indicated “that the Commission would be in a position to conduct General and Regional Elections no later than late November 2019 with an Official List of Electors having a qualifying date of 31st October 2019.”
In a letter responding to Harmon yesterday, Jagdeo reiterated that “the timeline outlined by the Chairman of GECOM in his March 19, 2019 letter is totally unacceptable” and advised that Harmon “remind President David Granger that at midnight tonight (March 21, 2019) his government becomes illegal.”
Yesterday marked three months to the day since a PPP/C-sponsored motion of no-confidence was passed against the government in the National Assembly by a vote of 33 to 32.
Articles 106 (6) and 106(7) of the Constitution provide for elections to be held within three months of the passage of a no-confidence vote against government or a longer period agreed by at least two-thirds of the National Assembly. Despite a number of meetings, there appeared to be little prospects for an agreement on an extension, with Jagdeo suggesting the end of April as a possible date for the polls instead of March 21st.
Government has mounted a legal challenge to the validity of the passage of the motion. The Court of Appeal is expected to rule on its challenges today following appeals of an earlier judgment by the Chief Justice, who upheld the validity of the vote.
At the same time, it has maintained that GECOM has sole responsibility for the conduct of elections.
After more than a month had elapsed since the passage of the motion, the GECOM Secretariat announced that it would need at least 148 days to prepare for elections but that it was still awaiting approval for the start of preparations.
However, the government and opposition-nominated members of the seven-man commission have found themselves split on the matter of a timeline for elections.
The opposition-nominated commissioners have argued that the elections were possible by the deadline given that the current voters’ list is valid until April 30th, 2019. The government-nominated commissioners have, however, baulked at the notion of using money originally allocated for house-to-house registration for the holding of elections. They have also argued that the current voters’ list of more than 600,000 electors is bloated with the names of the dead and emigrants and needs to be cleansed via a new national house-to-house process. As a result, they have argued for the new registration exercise to precede the polls.
As a compromise, representatives of the Atlanta, Georgia-based Carter Center have suggested to the commission that general elections can be held in August if existing legislation is activated to remove the names of emigrants from the list.
“What has surfaced is the National Registration Act which provides for people who are non-resident to be taken off of the list… I’m not unprepared to explore the possibility of using the law that already exists but would need some regulations for it to be operationalised,” government-nominated commissioner Vincent Alexander told reporters after the meeting on Wednesday.
Alexander, while noting that none of the suggestions made were put into writing, said that the team accepted that on the one hand, every effort should be made to meet the deadline for elections or extending the time, but on the other hand something must cater for the rectifying of the voters’ list, which is a matter of concern.
He went on to say that it was suggested that the National Registration Act be operationalised to sanitise the list of overseas-based Guyanese.
Jason Carter, who is the grandson of former US President Jimmy Carter and a member of the team that met with GECOM on Wednesday, noted that the Carter Center’s role was limited. “We’re not Guyanese [but] we care about this country. The Carter Center has been here for many, many years, almost 30 years. This country is important to my grandfather. It’s important to me and my family as well but ultimately the issues that are being confronted right now (are) going to require the cooperation of political leadership of this country and we are optimistic, and we have had a very productive meeting with GECOM,” he said before leaving.
In his letter, to Granger, which was in response to a request for a work programme that would see the holding of credible polls in the shortest time, Patterson had advised that the timeline was arrived at after engagement with the GECOM Secretariat to determine the most feasible course of action to be pursued.
He also indicated that the Commission would need “an amount of $3.5 billion” and stressed that “additional resources” would be needed to facilitate an early end to the house-to-house process, which the Secretariat originally projected would be concluded in February 2020.
Patterson said that he has been assured that with a “significant increase in the allocated resources for the exercise and an adjustment in the management arrangements for some procurement activities, the execution of the programme could be restructured to be completed at least two months earlier, in 2019.”
Should this be achieved, he argued, most of the Commission’s concern for credibility and timeliness, and indeed most stakeholders, would be addressed. “I would, therefore, urge you to support this by providing the required additional resources and appropriate guidance to those agencies and authorities whose co-operation is required if our objectives are to be achieved,” he added.
