It is just what the country doesn’t need now. A full-blown row between the two age-old adversaries over the local government elections (LGE) scheduled to be held next year.
In an interview with Stabroek News on October 25th, Attorney General Anil Nandlall said that LGE next year seem unlikely given the current elections petitions, a call by the opposition for a new voters list and police probes of officers of the electoral body.
“How do we determine [GECOM’s readiness]? We have to fix the elections commission and that is the task of the elections commission itself as an independent constitutional body. All the government can do is to provide the resources and canvas for the changes,” he said.
Mr Nandlall added that not only is GECOM’s Chief Election Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield before the court, but that his party has no confidence in him again performing such functions at the electoral body.
“You have to be doubtful whether the Chief Election Officer and the Deputy Chief Election Officer and other functionaries, who are before the court charged with criminal offences, would be able to discharge their respective statutory responsibilities. Moreover, these persons’ credibility would come under heavy scrutiny. Important to an election commission is its credibility because public confidence is integral to the electoral process and moreover for the results declared by that commission to gain public acceptability. Unfortunately, the world saw the inner workings of GECOM on display during the elections and before March 2020 and subsequent to the elections,” Mr Nandlall stated.
On that same day, Opposition Leader Joseph Harmon told Stabroek News that APNU+AFC is expecting the LGE to be held in its statutory timeframe and said he is confident that current matters before the court will have no impact on the Chief Election Officer or others executing their duties.
“The government has to allocate the funds for GECOM to satisfy a new and credible voters’ list. LGE is a statutory requirement. It is the Government of Guyana’s responsibility to put in place everything for it to happen. So I am not prepared to accept any statement by Mr. Nandlall on GECOM’s readiness. The government has to provide the resources and GECOM has to make a statement if it is ready or not.”
“We will expect the Elections Commission to pronounce on this matter at the earliest possible opportunity …the elections commission has to carry out their function. The fact that the CEO is before the court does not impair his ability to perform any function which he has to perform. A lot of these charges we know are bogus, some have been withdrawn. I am not of the view that he or any of the members before the court is really a matter which will prevent them from doing what they have to do,” he said. Mr Harmon has since promised “serious resistance” if local government elections are not held as scheduled.
On October 26th President Ali stated that LGE will not be held until the issues which are currently affecting GECOM are fixed.
“…..As a people and the media…what we have to do is to fix what is there first and we have to ensure that we have a system that is working and a system that people trust and a system that is professional and a system that operates in an unbiased manner so that the people of our country can contribute”, Mr Ali said.
Maximum credit must be given to the APNU+AFC administration for convening LGE in 2016 and again in 2018. It must be remembered that PPP/C governments over a period of nearly 21 years had not held LGE and had found every conceivable excuse not to convene these polls. Former President Jagdeo served 12 years without calling one and even though his administration came under international pressure, former President Ramotar did not convene one either. So when President Granger lived up to his campaign promise and held LGE it was an important turning point considering that the PNC itself had not convened LGE for over 20 years prior to 1992.
The local government system remains far from what it should be and municipal councils and neighbourhood democratic councils evince many of the same chronic problems that plague national life. Participation by citizens in local government organs has also been tepid. Nevertheless the 2016 polls were a crucial step forward in creating a local government culture as was the 2018 LGE polls which enabled timely renewal. Ironically it was the latter polls – on November 12 2018 – that put APNU+AFC in great disarray just before the December 21 2018 motion of no-confidence when the AFC was cut loose to compete in the LGE on its own and was subsequently marginalized.
Given the PPP/C’s history, any casual denial of the holding of LGE will be a retrograde step and seen as a reversion to the culture of unaccountability when it dismissed local government councils at will and installed its handpicked party loyalists in interim management committees. This could not be what the new Local Government Ministry is contemplating.
That is not to say that there aren’t real problems in convening LGE given the five-month electoral crisis generated by GECOM and its secretariat. These problems are however not insurmountable and should not prevent the holding of LGE next year.
There appear to be two major areas of contention: the voters list and the entwining of key electoral personnel in pending criminal cases and the two elections petitions filed on behalf of APNU+AFC. As it relates to the first, the present National Register of Registrants remains a perfectly viable basis for the extraction of a list of electors for the LGE. It served this purpose in 2016 and again in 2018 without complaint. There is no reason why continuous registration and claims and objections cannot provide an accurate roll of those eligible to vote in LGE in 2021. The baseless claims by APNU+AFC against the March 2nd voters list will no doubt be tested in court when the two elections petitions are heard. One presumes that APNU+AFC has been able to mobilise as witnesses the coterie of ghosts and jumbies that it alleged voted on March 2nd 2020. House-to-House enumeration for a new voters roll should definitely be on the agenda for the purposes of the 2025 general elections. It is not needed at this point.
As it relates to the key personnel at GECOM who were caught up in the atrocious denial of an elections result for five months there is an easy solution. They cannot be trusted to declare the result of a neighbourhood softball match let alone an election. They must all go. The only reason the Chief Election Officer Mr Keith Lowenfield should be allowed back into GECOM is to collect his belongings and to clear his desk. We have long said that he should be dismissed for the contorted elections results he presented on multiple occasions and his repeated defiance of the instructions of the GECOM Chair. The same should apply to Mr Clairmont Mingo and others who engaged in illicit behaviour in the hopes of handing a rigged election victory to the conniving and receptive APNU+AFC.
What GECOM should do, with the support of the government, is to reach out to the Commonwealth Secretariat and CARICOM for the seconding of a temporary Chief Election Officer and supporting officials for the LGE. The elections system has numerous safeguards against rigging and these were evident on March 2nd at the 2,339 polling stations. The declaration of a final result was however corrupted on March 5th by the hijinks of Mr Mingo which were later shepherded by Mr Lowenfield and provided with legal cover by the varied APNU+AFC forays to court.
Another major issue: fixing GECOM’s composition will have to await constitutional reform. The LGE must be held in 2021 and GECOM must set out a timeline and viable plan for this to be accomplished.
