Rapping the two main political parties for “power-grabbing policies”, ANUG yesterday proposed a raft of changes to the electoral laws including a method for dealing with the bloated voters roll.
A New and United Guyana (ANUG), which is one of three parties holding a joinder seat in Parliament, submitted its recommendations for changes to the Representation of the People Act (RoPA) in a letter to Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, Gail Teixeira. The government issued draft amendments to RoPA in early November, initiated a six-week consultation and invited submissions from the public.
In the letter signed by its Chairman, Timothy Jonas SC, ANUG noted that before the March 2nd, 2020 general elections and during the subsequent recount much was made by one party of the unreliability of the list of electors. ANUG said that this criticism was not unfounded as many Guyanese migrate and die abroad and their deaths are not recorded here and there is no automatic removal of their names from the list.
“Although this does not impact the efficacy of the election process given the other stringent safeguards which exist to ensure that the person who appears to vote is the same person whose name appears on the List at that place of Poll, ANUG recommends that measures should be taken as part of the continuous updating of the list to accommodate this deficiency. Specifically, each Guyanese should have a single number for all administrative (T.I.N., Driver’s Licence, N.I.S., Passport) purposes. There should be a single data-base nationally containing this information. If a person does not transact any business on any forum for a period of seven years (paying monthly or quarterly PAYE or other tax, renewing driver’s licence, obtaining certificate of tax compliance, paying rates, paying monthly NIS or receiving monthly NIS pension), that person should be presumed dead and his/her name removed from the Electoral List, and can of course be restored to the List upon application by that person”, the letter said.
Adverting to the government’s bill with proposed amendments to RoPA, ANUG said that the changes should be geared to address inadequacies in the legislative structure underpinning elections. It then analysed the shortcomings it had detected in the electoral system. The party said that the breakdown in the electoral process occurred during the count of Statements of Poll for District Four by the Returning Officer. ANUG said that this breakdown was immediately detected by those present and who were mandated to be there by the statutory structure.
“ANUG submits that the proven violation of the statutory process by Gecom (Guyana Elections Commission) personnel in Region 4 during the count of the Statements of Poll (first at Ashmin’s Building and then at Gecom’s Head Office in Kingston) does not reflect a weakness or inadequacy in the legislative structure. In fact, the immediate discovery by those persons present of the false count reflects that the legislative scheme of scrutiny by all parties during the count and transparency during the count worked very well”, the party said.
ANUG added that it recognizes the attempt in the government Bill to avoid a repetition of this violation by three measures: (i) dividing District 4 into four sub-districts, thereby de-centralizing the power now enjoyed by the single District 4 Returning Officer to count the Statements of Poll, (ii) by requiring the release online of the Statements of Poll, and (iii) by introducing severe criminal penalties for such violations.
ANUG, whose presidential candidate at the March 2020 general elections was former Speaker of the House Ralph Ramkarran SC, said that instead of specifically addressing District 4 and creating sub-districts, the amendment should require Gecom to create sub-districts within each of the ten electoral districts for the purposes of any given election so as to ensure that the total number of voters in a given electoral district or sub-district does not exceed 75,000 .
The party contended that the provisions contained in the proposed amendments for publication of the Statements of Poll online are insufficient, and repeat the mistake of centralizing rather than de-centralizing power, by placing the onus of uploading the Statements of Poll onto the website in the hands of the Chief Election Officer.
“In addition to requiring the presiding officer to send the Statements of Poll to the Returning Officer, and requiring the Returning Officer to send the Statement of Poll to the Chief Election Officer to be posted electronically onto the Commission’s website, ANUG recommends that the presiding officer should also be mandated to upload his or her Statement of Poll onto the website to be immediately accessible to the public. A separate table can be maintained electronically by Gecom accessible by the Presiding Officers for this purpose, and the publication by the Chief Election Officer will provide eventual corroboration to what has been published by the Presiding Officers. There should also be a mechanism for Statements of Poll to be immediately provided electronically by the Presiding Officers to national media houses”, ANUG said.
Practical
The party stated that the failure in the system in 2020 was not legislative but practical as only the two large parties and Gecom had copies of all Statements of Poll, so that allegations made against each other by the two parties could not be verified independently. This is resolved, ANUG said, if a mechanism exists for the media and the public to access the Statements of Poll electronically as they are created by the Presiding Officer at each place of Poll. The party said that subsections 9A(b) and l0A(a) of the Bill should be altered to give effect to the above suggestions.
ANUG also argued in its letter to Teixeira that the criminal sanctions sought to be introduced for contravention of the regulatory scheme are “disproportionate and often unreasonably apply strict liability measures, so that an innocent mistake can result in criminal sanctions”. Further, the party said that sanctions are often imposed for non-compliance with obligations created which are impossible to strictly adhere to.
“For example, Regulation l0A(a) of the Bill imposes on the Chief Election Officer personally to receive thousands of sealed envelopes containing Statements of Poll from throughout the country and ‘immediately’ post them to the website. If he fails to do so, he commits an offence and is liable for $10 million and life in prison. There is no mention of if he fails without just cause, or knowingly or willfully fails to do so. If he falls sick, if he breaks a leg and is in hospital, or if he receives 500 envelopes at once and physically takes 8 hours to upload the contents of each, he goes to jail. The law must be just; it does not exist to terrorize”, ANUG asserted.
On another area of concern, ANUG noted that the major opposition party has made much of the fact that documents were missing from Election Boxes, a fact it said was ‘discovered’ during the recount.
“ANUG notes that the legislative structure is clear, and the obligations of the Presiding Officers as to what documents are to be placed into the boxes is equally clear. ANUG opines that the disparities do not reflect an inadequacy in the regulatory structure, but a failure in the Gecom personnel in the places of poll, which warrants liability.
“ANUG proposes that the Bill include a provision that if any Presiding Officer fails without good cause to place into the Box those documents, they commit an offence and are liable to a fine or imprisonment”, the party said.
ANUG took a swipe at the two major parties which it did not name but would be seen as a reference to the PPP and the PNCR.
“ANUG wishes to remind that much of the distress now felt in the country has been caused by the power grabbing policies of the two large parties. For the 2001 elections, the Government and Opposition agreed to establish a mixed electoral system of proportional representation and first past the post based on the recommendations of the Constitution Reform Commission. They created ten constituencies in accordance with the boundaries of the ten Regions. Twenty-five MPs were allocated to these new electoral districts, the number for each depending on the population of the Region. The clear intention was that this issue would be revisited after the elections. This review never happened and the purported ‘reform’ was farcical. No MP is meaningfully identified with any particular constituency. No constituency offices have been established for the public to meet their MPs to address their issues and grievances. The reality of the current situation is simply first past the post – winner take all. As long as the main political parties are unwilling to loosen their grip on the electoral process, they will be empowered to manipulate that process”, the party declared.
