President David Granger and Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday both sounded notes of optimism about reaching agreement on a new Guy-ana Elections Commission (GECOM) Chairperson after they held their first meeting since the Carib-bean Court of Justice (CCJ) declared the previous appointment of retired judge James Patterson to be flawed.
Both Granger and Jagdeo described the meeting, which was held at the Ministry of the Presidency, as productive as they committed to “hammering out” modalities for nomination of a new GECOM Chair “within days,” thereby allowing them to return to the bargaining table before July 12th, when the CCJ is due to deliver consequential orders based on its finding that Patterson’s appointment was unconstitutional and also that a no confidence motion passed against the government last December was valid. However, neither party would commit to assuring that the appointment would be made before the CCJ’s decision.
Granger said that he could not state when they would arrive at a conclusion but stressed that it is not “an open-ended process.”
“Our discussions, which lasted about an hour, were clearly focused on the means, not the nomination, the means to be adopted for the nomination for a Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission,” he told a press briefing following the meeting.
“We feel that unless and until the Chairman is appointed, the work of the commission will not be able to move ahead as quickly as possible,” he added.
Upon exiting the Ministry of the Presidency, Jagdeo also briefed the press and said if both sides acted in good faith, the issue of nominations could be settled within days.
“We had a relatively productive engagement. The matter is so important that it should be settled in a matter of days,” he said. “So, we are hoping that with good faith negotiations on both sides, that we can resolve the matter of the new Chairman of GECOM within a matter of days. Those were the President’s words themselves,” he added.
Granger was accompanied to the meeting by Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo, Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan, Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Basil Williams, Minister of Social Protection Amna Ally, Minister of State Dawn Hastings-Williams, Minister of Public Health Volda Lawrence, Minister of Natural Resources Raphael Trotman and Director General of the Ministry of the Presidency Joseph Harmon.
Jagdeo was accompanied by PPP/C Presidential Candidate Irfaan Ali, Members of Parliament Anil Nandlall and Juan Edghill, as well as Gail Teixeira.
‘Assurance’
Granger said that his meeting with Jagdeo was a show of assurance to the Guyanese people that “everything is being done to implement the decisions of the court and to ensure the elections were credible.”
“As you know, we are bound by the constitution and Article 161. There has been no variation on our position or the opposition’s position on the validity of that Article. We are also bound now by interpretation of the CCJ, which has spoken twice on the issue of elections and it was really in obedience to the last injunction by that court that I decided to meet the Leader of the Opposition and decide on the way forward, and this has been done,” the President said.
Harmon added that the meeting agreed that the process will be completed in the shortest possible time, which would require them working towards a list of persons to arrive at six, which Jagdeo would formally submit. “The conversations tended toward the injunction of the CCJ; that the process must be a consensual one. In keeping with that, we have agreed that the Leader of the Opposition will submit, in a very short manner, a list of names of persons that will be for the consideration of the President. This submission of names will also include any suggestion the President has for inclusion on that list… that list of six will then go to the President for him to choose,” Harmon said.
He explained that to assist in expediting the process, two suggestions were floated. “One which sees a short group of technical persons, not technical in the sense of removing politicians, let us say a small group of advisors from the opposition and the president looking at the preliminary list of names and weeding out those which would not find favour either way. And once we arrive at… that list [it] can be presented to the Leader of the Opposition for him to present to the President. That is one approach,” he explained.
“The other approach is for the President and the Leader of the Opposition to sit and hammer it out by themselves”, he added.
Previous nominees in play
Granger was quick to emphasise that Jagdeo was “free to submit the names that have already been submitted in the three previous iterations.”
In this regard, Jagdeo has said that governance expert, Lawrence Lachmansingh and Major General (retired) Joe Singh have indicated their willingness to be nominated again. Singh is a former Chairman of GECOM.
“And he has agreed to confirm that those persons are still willing to have their names forwarded so that names that have been submitted before are not eliminated,” Granger said.
“The process, which has been identified by the CCJ, allows for the President to make submissions in the form of this hammering out that the CCJ has enjoined us to adopt. That is as much as we have achieved. I think it is a move forward to appoint a Chairman of the Commission and I am confident that once there is a Chairman… who enjoys the confidence of both the President and Leader of the Opposition, the Commission will function more smoothly,” he added.
Seeking to clarify what he believes was a misinterpretation of his statements about him submitting nominees, Granger stressed that the constitutional process has to be followed. “It means that yes, I could make a submission, but in the final analysis, that submission must come to me from the Leader of the Opposition,” he said.
Granger explained that he would not violate the constitution and seek to claim the process of submissions or the role of the Leader of the Opposition. “He is open to recommendations on my part but I can’t recommend to myself; so the recommendation must come from him,” he said.
A letter from Harmon to Teixeira dated June 28th had said that the government had interpreted the recent ruling of the CCJ to mean that both the President and the Opposition Leader would provide names on the list of six persons to be nominated.
Jagdeo yesterday again stated that he was not averse to Granger floating names but the selection of six nominees must come from him, as per the law.
“We agreed that both sides, with smaller groups, would try to get together to hammer out the names. I would submit names and the President, as I said in my letter, he could initiate names. We are not averse to him suggesting names, too, but the constitutional responsibility to submit the six names is that of the Leader of the Opposition… We are prepared to consider names, if the President were to suggest those names in an informal process that would start with a smaller team over the next couple of days,” Jagdeo said.
“I suggested that I would start with the resubmission of the 18 names, appropriately adjusted, for people who may not want their names resubmitted. We will use those names as a starting point to see if we can’t come up with a name from that list. Should we not agree on all six names coming from those 18, then we will submit additional names. And of course, the President is free to suggest names, too, but at the end of the day, we will have to make a determination too that that they are acceptable to us. This is where we are at,” he added.
Granger’s rejection of three separate lists of six names from Jagdeo and his subsequent unilateral appointment of Justice Patterson triggered legal proceedings which went all the way to the CCJ and ended with that court’s ruling on June 18 that the appointment by the President was unconstitutional.
