Attorney General Anil Nandlall yesterday met with the Chair and Commissioners of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to discuss the proposed amendments to the Representation of the People Act (RoPA).
Chair, retired Justice Claudette Singh led the delegation that consisted of Commissioners Sase Gunraj, Bibi Shadick, Manoj Narayan, Vincent Alexander, Charles Corbin and Desmond Trotman. Justice Singh had made several submissions to the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs and the Attorney General’s Chambers which are spearheading the process. Yesterday’s meeting was a result of those submissions.
Last week Tuesday, Nandlall announced that he has started meeting with groups that made submissions on the proposed amendments. He has already met with the private sector and civil society body – Electoral Reform Group (ERG).
The draft amendments were released in November last year and since then the government has been accepting submissions from the public on the proposed changes. Thus far, it has received a number of those submissions and GECOM’s is said to be among the most substantive.
Among the submissions, the GECOM Chair made was the call for the consolidation of the electoral laws as well as amendments to allow for the Chief Election Officer to furnish the Commission with copies of the Statements of Poll (SOPs) to aid it in the declaration and publication of the final results.
This proposed reform is seen as strengthening the role of GECOM in the final declaration. The current legislation appears to make it seem that GECOM is bound to accept the CEO’s final report. This had been an issue in the 2020 elections when the CEO submitted a clearly erroneous report and defied the directions of the Chair.
Speaking to Stabroek News after the meeting, government Commissioner Gunraj said that the meeting was a cordial one with the AG and they discussed the submissions put forth by the Chair. He noted that while the submissions were not that of the full Commission, the government Commissioners did engage in the discussions with the AG.
“We spoke about the submissions made by the Chair and the Opposition attended but they did not want to participate because they held on to their claim that no submissions came from them,” he said.
When asked whether the government side of the Commission would be making any submission on the proposed amendments, Gunraj said “I have no intentions of making a submission and I am not sure my colleagues will be making either.”
Lacked substance
Meanwhile, Opposition-nominated Commissioner Alexander related that the meeting with the Attorney General lacked substance since it is premised on submissions that did not come from the full Commission. He said at yesterday’s meeting the Chair reiterated her submissions.
“When they [AG and team] came to us and we made the point that the same submissions were not representative of GECOM because GECOM never discussed the matter in house. So, she [Justice Singh] really submit recommendations that were … her own.
“We were unprepared to make recommendations not having had the opportunity, the benefit from an internal discussion. That is essentially how it [the meeting] ended,” Alexander said.
Alexander maintained that there were no internal discussions on RoPA amendments and that they could not have participated in discussing submissions they never made. He explained that the Commission has been consistently failing to properly address the proposed amendments and come up with a holistic submission that reflected the views of GECOM.
“Last Tuesday the matter was on the agenda, in a funny way, stating that discussion of the submissions of Corbin, Alexander and Trotman [would be held] and we made the point that this was not a matter to discuss our submission rather that our submissions are merely a part of the discussion. That is how the item ended and nobody said anything. So there was no discussion.
“We could have had a proper discussion on the amendments and then made our submissions as a Commission and say that this is majority view and this is the minority view and then allow the AG to treat with them the way he is supposed to,” he said.
The veteran GECOM Commissioner said that the meeting should have happened after that process was completed. He added that Nandlall informed the team that he is doing consultations in tranches meaning the next time he will meet with GECOM would be to discuss the National Registration Act.
The government has said that it will be amending the National Registration Act along with RoPA but to date has not released any word of when that process would be completed.
In a statement, issued after the meeting, Alexander and his fellow Opposition Commissioners Corbin and Trotman said that one would have expected GECOM as a primary stakeholder to have been involved in the RoPA amendment process from its very inception.
They said that GECOM itself, to wit the Government-nominated Commissioners and the Chairperson demonstrated absolutely no interest in having GECOM participate in the process. Although it was agreed that there should have been an internal discussion among the Commissioners, that never eventuated, they reiterated.
“Mischief was afoot since GECOM never discussed the matter or decided on the content of any submission. Even the Chairperson`s notes on the proposed amendments have not been shared with us. Commissioner Shadick also advised the Commission that she had made her personal submission, thus there was no need for her to participate in any GECOM internal discussion on the matter.
“We further reiterated our previous position that GECOM should conduct a review of its conduct of the 2020 elections as the precursor to making any submission on electoral reform. That initiation of a discussion fell on deaf ears, and the Chairperson simply moved on to the next agenda item. GECOM has refused to discuss the matter, yet we all came to the so-called consultations,” the statement read.
The Commissioners argued that GECOM`s participation in any reform process should follow a review of election 2020, the conduct of which has occasioned the reform. They note that the reform should focus on agreed-to and ventilated concerns of the stakeholders, rather than the concerns of the governing party “who has assumed the posture of the complainant, prosecutor, judge and jury in the post-election period, and in relation to the need for electoral reform.”
“Consultations cannot be reduced to a meeting with the AG, who has been integral to all of the above postures. At a minimum, the wider community in their geographic locations, and spheres of interest, should be allowed to interrogate any proposals; and among themselves seek clarity and consensus. The process cannot be reduced to the AG having one-on-ones with the prerogative of determining the outcome of a flawed process, in which his role is manifestly incestuous,” the trio posited.
They further argued that there is a need for legislative changes to deal with dead people on the voters’ list as well as the introduction of biometric technologies to prevent fraudulent voting.
“We also find it duplicitous for the Government to heap praises on the International Community for the role they played in the last elections and at the same time not heed their call for a new voters` list. The manner of conduct of the proposed reform is undemocratic, flawed, deficient and self-serving, and consequentially is not an appropriate platform for the birthing of the substantive changes that are required, hence we cannot embrace the process as formulated, notwithstanding our commitment to the much-touted and needed reform,” the Opposition Commissioners said.
The employment of biometric technologies has been consistently raised by Alexander but to date, the Commission has not made a decision on it.
The draft amendments are a result of the attempts to rig the March 2 2020 general and regional elections, which saw a five-month delay between balloting and the declaration of the final results.
As a consequence of the events of the March 2020 elections, several former GECOM officials, including Chief Election Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield, Deputy CEO Roxanne Myers, and Region Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo, and political party officials were charged with election-related offences.
One of the major changes the government proposes is the division of Region Four, the country’s largest electoral district, into four sub-districts – East Bank Demerara, East Coast Demerara, North Georgetown and South Georgetown – effectively adding a new section to Section 6 of RoPA, which deals with polling districts and divisions.
Among the proposed amendments are the introduction of hefty fines and lengthy jail time for several election-related offences. The fines are in the millions while jail time ranges from three years to life.
