Dear Editor,
Yesterday, a delegation from the Government met with the Guyana Elections Commission.
It was very clear from the outset that the purpose of the meeting was to intimidate the Commission into participating in its ploy to delay elections.
It is noteworthy that there was no prior request for a meeting and a request only surfaced after the meeting with the Leader of the Opposition, at which the Chairman, Justice Claudette Singh, S.C. C.C.H., expressed a desire to ‘conduct elections before the end of the year’.
As was expected, the contributions of the members of the delegation, if implemented, could only lead to further delay.
At the meeting, Attorney General Basil Williams cited the pending appeal against the decision of the Chief Justice in Christopher Ram v. Guyana Elections Commission, Attorney General et ors, including the filing of an application for a stay of execution. It seems as though he wants to delay the holding of elections until the hearing of this matter, possibly by the Caribbean Court of Justice.
A question was posed by the delegation to the Chairman about the statement attributed to her regarding the holding of elections before the end of the year and same was confirmed by her.
We maintain that, in keeping with the constitutional prescriptions in Article 106(6), and the admonitions of the Caribbean Court of Justice and the Chief Justice in the various cases resulting from the successful passage of the No Confidence Motion, General and Regional Elections should be held in the shortest possible time. We reiterate that this is eminently possible.
Yours faithfully,
Robeson Benn
Bibi Shadick
Sase Gunraj
Commissioners, Guyana Elections
Commission
