The Guyana Elections Commission yesterday afternoon decided that government-nominated Commissioners and Opposition-nominated Commissioners would each present lists of shortlisted candidates to fill the positions of Chief Election Officer (CEO) and Deputy CEO.
Opposition-nominated Commissioner Vincent Alexander told Stabroek News that the decision was taken at “the shortest meeting” GECOM has had to date.
“The act of shortlisting is incomplete. Basically what happened today (yesterday) and what we are going to do is that we have one list coming from the nominees of the opposition, one from the nominees of the government. We are going to combine those two and see where we have common names and the others we would have a debate over using the criteria which is in the advertisement,” Alexander related in a brief comment to the Stabroek News.
There are currently 39 applicants for the posts of CEO and DCEO along with over 200 applicants for the other advertised positions. According to Alexander, the same process would be applied for every advertised position.
Initially, 20 persons had applied for the position of CEO and those persons included controversial former CEO Gocool Boodoo who was stopped from proclaiming an extra parliamentary seat for the PPP/C in 2011 and former Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of the Presi-dency Omar Shariff who was fired in 2016 after being accused of accumulating a substantial amount of wealth which was inconsistent with the salary of a public servant.
Boodoo has bowed out of the race, Alexander told Stabroek News yesterday.
The list also includes Director General of Jamaica’s Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) and Regional Manager at the Electoral Commission of Jamaica Leslie Oliver Harrow; St Kitts Election Official Eugene Godfrey Petty; Vishnu Persaud – former GECOM Public Relations Officer; Aneal Giddings – GECOM’s Information Technology Manager; attorney at law Saphier Husain; GECOM Assistant Registration Officer and former Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) Commissioner Deodat Persaud; Dr Kurt Clarke from Texas; Christopher Chan; Colin Thompson; Nyall Jodhan of The Citizen’s Initiative (TCI) – a party that contested the March 2020 elections; Dr Stanley Paul; Dr Hubert Maloney; Abushameer Khan; Simone Beckles; Jainarine Singh; Ronald Singh; Amar Panday and Dr Breysha Saskia Solomon.
Based on the advertisement, the CEO is required to play the key leadership role of GECOM’s Secretariat and is tasked with the responsibility for implementing all aspects of its operations, and ensuring that results achieved are consistent with the laws of Guyana and the policies determined by the Commission.
The successful candidate is responsible for advising the Commission on policy matters and their implementation; the interpretation of relevant legislation, and reports on their applications among a plethora of other responsibilities required for the day-to-day functioning of the Secretariat.
During a previous appearance on internet talk show – Politics 101 with Dr David Hinds, Alexander said that the criteria for CEO and DCEO seem to be tailored specifically for employees within GECOM since the posts require someone with almost a decade of electoral experience.
“It seems to suggest preference for people already in the system and the fact of the matter is, if one looks back at GECOM, until now, all those who became CEOs came from the system, as far as I can remember,” Alexander, who has been a GECOM Commissioner for over 14 years, had said.
The process used for hiring the CEO and DCEO has been under intense scrutiny following the allegations of misconduct against former CEO Keith Lowenfield and DCEO Roxanne Myers. They are both before the courts on various charges.
Traditionally, the process employed for hiring the CEO and DCEO involves the GECOM Commissioners interviewing the shortlisted candidates and scoring them using a standard scoring sheet. They then bring the scores to the full Commission and make recommendations following which a vote is taken and the successful applicant is appointed to the post.
However, with the scrutiny and increased accusations of GECOM being partisan, Opposition-nominated Commissioner Desmond Trotman tabled a proposal to have an independent panel appointed to conduct the interviews and then submit a report to the Commission. However, that was rejected by the Commission at last week’s meeting.
“I made the proposition (after the rejection of the independent panel) and said alright if you want to involve Commissioners, you can involve them but you can add to the Commissioners, other persons so that there is a mix of persons there and that too has so far been rejected,” Alexander had said.
