The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) yesterday decided to proceed with a 42-day long Claims and Objections (C&O) process, which began yesterday, although opposition-nominated commissioners maintained that a 35-day process had previously been agreed upon.
Following a vote at an over three-hour-long statutory commission meeting, government-nominated commissioner Vincent Alexander told reporters that Chief Election Officer Keith Lowenfield stated that when President David Granger announced March 2nd as the date for elections he granted the commission extra days which the secretariat decided to use to lengthen the objections period.
“The change of time does not interfere with the overall framework within which we operate. It just seeks to use time. The more time we have to do Claims and Objections, the greater is the opportunity for people out there to be able to get their names on the list,” Alexander explained.
Opposition-nominated commissioners are less sanguine about the change and at least two of them have accused GECOM Chairperson Claudette Singh of bias. Singh has not been available to the media since she took up her post.
“We have had the unsatisfactory occurrence where the commission made a decision to have Claims and Objections be 35 days…but an Order for 42 days was signed. We had great disagreement today about this problem. It came to a vote and we said not to revisit it that there was sufficient time for all claims and objections to be done…but the Chairperson unfortunately has [ignored] two instances where the CEO has admitted he added in days,” Opposition-nominated commissioner Robeson Benn told reporters.
Opposition-nominated commissioner Bibi Shadick explained that Lowenfield told the Commission that he informed the Chairman before he added the seven extra days.
“My firm opinion is that when the Chairman signed the second order she knew very well she was signing 42 days against the decision of the commission. As far as I’m concerned this is déjà vu. We have another Chairman who is going against the decisions of the commission…She signed that Order for 42 days and I don’t care how much she says I didn’t read and I didn’t count and I didn’t what. I am of the firm opinion that she knew very well that she was signing an order for 42 days and not 35. I am very disillusioned that we have another Chairman who is taking decisions on the side of what the government commissioners are asking even though the commission made a decision,” Shadick stressed.
Shadick said that Singh has offered no explanation for her actions and lamented that there is nothing the commissioners can do to change what has occurred.
“If the Chairman signed an order and she is not moving to have it corrected, what can we do? We cannot change the order. So the order stands at 42 days,” she told reporters, before adding that up to Monday evening the Chair had given assurances that the order would be changed to 35 days.
Commissioner Sase Gunraj, who had promised to seek sanctions against the GECOM Secretariat for failing to implement a decision of the commission, declined to comment on the Chairperson’s actions but maintained his objection to a 42-day process.
“I objected to it before and continue to object to it I believe that this is allowing the mischief of the secretariat to [go unpunished],” he told reporters.
By way of an order issued on September 26, Order No. 70 of 2019, GECOM provided for 49 days for C&O. Following objections, an addendum, dated September 27, was published and it provides for 42 days.
The process began slowly yesterday, with Registration Offices in Georgetown reporting more enquiries than registrations.
The Secretariat has provided for an all-day process and is arranging to open 41 sub-offices across the country.
Commissioners have been tasked with scrutinising the proposed locations and will meet again on Friday to provide approval.
Meanwhile, no decision has been made on the means through which the data from house-to-house registration will be used in the C&O period.
Alexander explained that the encoding process had been suspended to facilitate the preparation of the Preliminary List of Electors (PLE) and has since resumed.
The controversial decision to ask all 646,625 listed persons on the PLE verify their registration, according to Alexander, was not discussed at all.
Order No. 70 of 2019,had required every person whose name appears on the PLE to visit the Registration Office in their respective area with their National Identification Card to verify their registration record in order to be included in the Official List of Electors (OLE) for the polls.
However, the new order that has been issued no longer includes the requirement.
