The Private Sector Commission (PSC) today expressed grave concern that a unilateral change in the location of polling places could disenfranchise voters and it called on GECOM to promptly reverse the last-minute alterations.
A statement from the PSC follows:
The Private Sector Commission (PSC) takes extremely seriously the very real possibility that a significant number of voters may be disenfranchised by the changes made by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to a substantial number of polling places in a wide number of rural locations.
The Private Sector Commission wishes to point out that, while GECOM is bound in law to observe the statutory process requiring the Chief Election Officer to act within the authority of the Commission, he appears to have acted unilaterally and on his own by changing the location of polling places between January and February and without informing the contesting political parties.
The Private Sector Commission is dismayed at the claim reported in the media to have been made by the Chairman of GECOM that the decision to change the location of these polling places is in response to a recommendation made by the Carter Center that private residences, should not be used as polling places.
The PSC has checked and is informed that the Carter Center in its final report, following the 2015, elections made no such recommendation and we call upon the Carter Center to immediately publicly make the Center’s position clear on this matter.
The PSC must also point out that, in any event, GECOM has in fact identified a number of private residences for polling places and mainly in the urban area of Georgetown.
The Private Sector Commission is aware that the Chief Elections Officer had presented to the Commission in January a document assigning polling places which was acceptable to the contesting who are political parties represented on the Commission. Given the factor of time involved, we urge that GECOM at the very minimum, promptly reverse the last minute and abrupt changes made in February to the assignment of polling places to those originally agreed upon in January.
