January 10th, 2020 is Nominations Day for the March 2nd, 2020 General and Regional Elections, according to a notice from the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).
Nominations Day will be expected to trigger the dissolution of Parliament. Contesting parties will have to meet rigorous requirements for nominating signatories and to identify all of their candidates.
In the interim, the notice, which was published in yesterday’s edition of the Stabroek News, said that all parties desirous of contesting the general elections are required to submit a party symbol for approval by GECOM before Nominations Day.
GECOM is requesting that applications for the approval of the symbols be submitted no later than December 13th, 2019 to enable timely consideration.
Symbols in both printed and electronic versions should be submitted to the office of the Chief Election Officer, 31 Fort Street, Kingston, Georgetown.
Leader of the Opposition Bharrat Jagdeo on Thursday noted that the dissolution of Parliament has to be done before Nominations Day.
Director General of the Ministry of the Presidency Joseph Harmon told a post-Cabinet press briefing on the same day that the dissolution of Parliament will be decided principally by the need for GECOM to get additional resources that it needs. Responding to a question from Stabroek News, he indicated that because of this, it appears that Parliament will not be dissolved by December 2nd.
While Jagdeo dismissed this argument, he claimed that government is likely to delay dissolving Parliament until after a “couple of protests” and condemnation from the international community.
He stressed that based on statutory guidelines for funding constitutional agencies, GECOM should not need any more money.
“GECOM should have in its bank account in excess of $5 billion and if they don’t have it [Minister Winston] Jordan is breaking the law,” he said.
Jagdeo emphasised that having received in excess of $7 billion in allocated sums, the commission, as a constitutional agency, is not required to return it to the Consolidated Fund at the end of the fiscal year and even if it were required to, then it should be able to “draw down from the Contingency Fund.”
“You don’t have to go back to Parliament. This counts as an emergency,” he stressed.
