After meeting for over three hours yesterday, the government and opposition commissioners of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) failed to come consensus on the holding of constitutionally-due general elections.
As a result, the six members and new Chairperson Justice Claudette Singh will again meet on Friday to again deliberate on the issue.
The commissioners have received the decision of the Chief Justice Roxane George-Wiltshire on GECOM’s contentious ongoing national house-to-house registration exercise and made their proposals on the way forward from their respective interpretations of the ruling.
The judge has had upheld the legality of the exercise but has also declared that existing registrants cannot be excised from a new voters’ list unless certain criteria provided by law are met—that being by death or by specified means of disqualification.
Government has been insistent on the registration exercise being needed to sanitise the voters’ database in order to ensure the elections, which are due as a result of the passage of a no-confidence motion against the administration, are “credible.” Government spokespersons, including President David Granger, had initially argued that the house-to-house registration was needed to cleanse the voter database of some 200,000 extra names.
This newspaper understands Chief Election Officer Keith Lowenfield also shared his view on methods to prepare for the holding of the elections in order to guide the Chairperson on the issue before she reports to President David Granger on the electoral body’s readiness.
“We started the discussions on the way forward and it is incomplete…we were frank, we were arguing our own dispositions, but at the end of the day it was an incomplete discourse,” government-nominated commissioner Vincent Alexander told the press after the meeting.
And while he would not say what proposals were made by the Chief Election Officer, Alexander said, “I will say to you that we have in fact referred the CEO for further clarifications on scenarios.”
Alexander was asked if, given the tone of yesterday’s meeting, the house-to-house registration will continue. He replied that he felt that “house-to-house has not been thrown out.”
He said that house-to-house registration was the means he has identified to get a sanitised list. Asked if the claims and objections process could be used, he quickly replied, “That is not a way of sanitising.”
Opposition-nominated Commissioner Robeson Benn did not stop to speak with the press but Bibi Shaddick and Sase Gunraj both said that no decision was had and that another meeting is scheduled for tomorrow.
The opposition-nominated commissioners want the house-to-house registration stopped immediately and for GECOM to focus on the holding of polls, as contemplated by the constitution in wake of the passage of a no-confidence motion.
‘As early as possible’
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Anil Nandlall, the attorney for Christopher Ram, who had challenged the legality of the registration exercise, noted that with her ruling, the Chief Justice issued an accompanying “Order of Court,” which states:
“This Court further Orders that the declaration sought for the house to house registration exercise currently being conducted by the Guyana Elections Commission, Chief Elections Officer and/or the Commissioner of National Registration is illegal, unlawful, ultra vires, unconstitutional, null void and of no effect is not granted in that the said exercise is not of itself unlawful or unconstitutional however that the removal of the names of persons who are already on the list of registrants and who were not, or have not been, or are not registered in the current house to house registration exercise with a consequence of non-inclusion in the list of electors, would be unconstitutional, unless they are deceased or disqualified pursuant to Article 159(2) with the safeguards for removal of the names of persons pursuant to the National Registration Act, Chapter 19:08 to be strictly complied with.”
Nandlall said in the circumstances, there should be no more doubt that the house-to-house registration process should be immediately aborted and GECOM should proceed swiftly to refresh the current list of electors by a suitable cycle of claims and objections.
“Having regard to the uncanny similarities, in recent times, between positions advocated for by the Government and decisions made by the Chief Elections Officer and the Secretariat, the Commission should vigorously interrogate all time-frames being proposed by the Chief Elections Officer and the Secretariat, in terms of a work plan, because, in keeping with the current trend, those work plans will most likely coincide with a December 2019 elections, the very time-frame which Government Ministers are announcing countrywide,” he said. “The current constitutional matrix mandates elections to have been held by March 21, 2019. These elections are now six months overdue. GECOM is duty bound to be ready to hold them as early as possible,” he added.
