Leader of the Liberty and Justice Party (LJP) Lenox Shuman will remain on his party’s list of candidates for the March 2 general and regional elections, Chair of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Justice (ret’d) Claudette Singh has confirmed.
“I have to inform you that the Commission after considerable deliberations decided that Mr Shuman’s name would remain on his party’s list,” Singh wrote to Shuman’s lawyer K A Juman-Yassin SC yesterday, referencing previous correspondence.
A controversy had erupted over whether Shuman was a dual citizen on Nomination Day when lists were submitted to GECOM on January 10. Shuman was one of three candidates identified to the commission as holding dual citizenship on Nomination Day. On the day in question, all candidates contesting the March 2nd general and regional elections were required to sign a Statutory Declaration identifying themselves as eligible to sit in the National Assembly. Article 155(a) of the Constitution specifically disqualifies persons who hold citizenship in foreign states from election to the National Assembly.
On January 21st, the seven-member commission decided that once a person held dual citizenship at the time when they signed the statutory declaration form, that person should not be allowed on the lists of candidates. In keeping with this decision, Singh wrote to each party requesting that they provide evidence in writing showing just cause why the name of the identified candidate should remain on their list of candidates. The deadline for this submission was January 31st.
However, Shuman questioned the authority through which GECOM has questioned his legitimacy and lengthy correspondence had been sent to GECOM by his lawyer defending his right to be on the LJP list and stating that he had renounced his Canadian citizenship.
In the letter sent to Singh by Juman-Yassin, the attorney said that GECOM “cannot remove Shuman’s name off his party’s List of Candidates as only an order from the High Court can facilitate this.”
Additionally, Shuman, who has declared himself a threat to the two main political parties, is accusing the Commission of possible bias.
“It is a known fact that all your members on the Commission are affiliated to one or two parties and that the Liberty and Justice Party…is a threat to both…as it has joined forces with two other parties…it is in the interest of the two main political parties to weaken this coalition so they may not get sufficient seats,” Juman-Yassin asserted in his letter.
Referring to Article 144(8) of the Constitution, he noted that “any court or other tribunal prescribed by law for the determination of the existence or extent of any civil right or obligation shall be established by law and shall be independent and impartial; and where proceedings for such a determination are instituted by any person before such a court or other tribunal, the case shall be given a fair hearing within a reasonable time.”
“[GECOM] if it should sit to determine the issue… is a tribunal and as a result should be independent and impartial and the matter to be determined shall be given a fair hearing… apart from yourself all other members are not independent and or impartial thus any deliberation would be in breach of the constitution,” Juman-Yassin had argued, while noting that Shuman believes some commissioners will use this opportunity to oust him as a candidate from his party’s candidates’ list.
At a press conference held at his party’s Cowan Street headquarters on Tuesday, Shuman told reporters that he renounced his allegiance to Canada on December 11th and on Tuesday received “a copy of a certificate” from the Canadian High Commission showing that his renunciation was completed on January 9th, one day before the January 10th Nomination Day.
