Urging a consensus approach in choosing a new Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Chairman, the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) has signalled its approval of the president and opposition leader jointly compiling a list of six nominees or for each to separately nominate three persons from which the president would select one. Selection of a non-Guyanese Commonwealth citizen should only be considered as “a last resort,” the party said.
The WPA’s position was contained in a statement issued yesterday in which it noted the “apparent uncertainty” over the procedure to be used in selecting a new GECOM chairperson. It is critical for the deliberations by the parties to be guided by the Caribbean Court of Justice’s (CCJ) apparent embrace of consensus as the preferred mode of behaviour, the statement said.
It revealed that the WPA’s understanding is that the CCJ has proposed a modification of the current formulae by requiring the two leaders to jointly participate in the compilation of a list of six nominees from which the president would eventually choose the chairperson in keeping with his constitutional mandate. WPA views this as a more acceptable approach since it greatly reduces, if not eliminate, the scope for unilateralism by both President David Granger and Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo.