Despite committing to working towards hosting the constitutionally overdue Local Government Elections (LGE) by the end of this year, seven months later, the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) is yet to identify a clear timeline for hosting those elections.
Local Government Elections were constitutionally due at the end of last year but GECOM was without a Chief Election Officer and could not have prepared to host the elections. As a result, the Chair, retired Justice Claudette Singh, wrote to the government informing them of the situation but did commit to confirming a timeline after the appointment of a CEO.
“…the Commission is unable to have those elections held at this point in time. As you are aware the Commission is currently working to conclude the hiring process of the Chief Elections Officer and other senior management staff. Please be assured that as Chairperson of the Guyana Elections Commission, I will communicate with you on the timeline at which Local Government Elections could be held when the Chief Election Officer is hired,” Justice Singh’s letter to Attorney General Anil Nandlall had explained.
GECOM’s former Public Relations Officer Vishnu Persaud has since filled that vacancy but no word on a plan has been communicated as yet.
At the beginning of June, the Commission’s Secretariat released a list of vacancies for “polling day staff for Local Government Elections.” The Commission is looking for Presiding Officers, Assistant Presiding Officers, Poll Clerks, Ballot Clerks/ Counting Assistants and Information Clerks. That process concluded at the end of June. Stabroek News had reported that the Secretariat decided to go ahead with the advertisement for polling day staff to be prepared for whenever the Commission announces a date.
“The Commission is not making any progress concerning Local Government Elections and [they were] supposed to be held last year. As you know, the Secretariat was without any CEO and now we have one but nobody is considering the elections.
“We recently concluded the continuous registration cycle and now we decided to go ahead and hire temporary staff so we can start training them. We are hoping that this would nudge the Commission to decide on a date but really we just wanted to have the staff trained and be ready for when a date is announced,” a GECOM source had told Stabroek News.
The GECOM Commissioners statutorily meet on Tuesday and Stabroek News has been in consistent contact with those Commissioners who would regularly inform that LGE did not make the agenda.
The GECOM Chair does not engage the media and when contacted yesterday for an update on the Commission’s preparedness for LGE, Public Relations Officer Yolanda Ward related that she is currently on vacation leave and would be unable to do so. Calls to CEO Persaud’s phone also went unanswered.
Yesterday, Opposition Commissioner Vincent Alexander told Stabroek News that while the Commission has had no substantive discussions in relation to the local government polls, they are still behind a preset timeline.
“As you know there have been no in-depth conversations in regard to Local Government Elections but we have had a timeline to hosting the elections at the end of the year but we are behind in that process. We can ideally catch up but whether we will meet the timeline is another issue.
“Right now we have recently completed the cross-matching process so that we have no duplications in the final register where we can extract the voter list when the time comes for election,” Alexander explained.
GECOM embarked on a continuous registration process back in March, particularly targeting new applicants. The continuous registration cycle concluded on May 29, 2022, with over 49,000 persons being registered for the first time. A total of 70,041 transactions were conducted during the period. 28,149 were new registrants between the ages of 14 and 17, while 21,130 were new registrants above the age of 18. Additionally, 4,629 persons applied for transfers, 6,526 persons changed or corrected their information, 7,667 applied for replacement identification cards and 1,940 registrants retook their ID photos.
Yesterday, Alexander explained that the Commission had mandated the Secretariat to reconcile the lists to ensure that there are no duplications.
“Again, we cannot say for sure if we would be able to hold the elections this year since that depends on how we move forward as a Commission but we have to complete the cross matching before we can come up with a list to have elections,” he lamented.
The deferral of the polls interrupted the sequence of two consecutive Local Government Elections, which were held under the APNU+AFC administration. After winning the 2015 general elections, the APNU+AFC government held the polls in 2016, ending a two-decade hiatus that began under the former PPP/C governments. The elections were held again in 2018 and were due last year.
With its track record of not holding the polls, analysts say that the PPP/C government will come under close scrutiny to ensure that the polls are held as soon as possible.
