With Local Government Elections (LGE) constitutionally overdue and the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) dragging its feet on preparations, the Leader of the Opposition is now accusing the government of having no intention of hosting the polls.
“First, let me say I don’t believe the government’s intention is to have local government elections. The government has never showed an interest in local government elections. They have always postponed local government elections, and local government elections were held at the right time under the APNU+AFC…the PPP has no interest in local government elections,” Norton said at a press conference on Tuesday.
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 wrote to the government informing it of the situation but committed 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.
Vishnu Persaud, GECOM’s former Public Relations Officer, has since filled that vacancy but no word on a plan has been communicated as yet.
It is more than seven months now since that letter was dispatched and elections postponed but the Commission continues to dither while civil society continues to call for action. Retired Justice Claudette Singh currently chairs the Elections Commission with Sase Gunraj, Bibi Shadick and Manoj Narayan appointed by the government while the APNU+AFC’s appointees are Vincent Alexander, Desmond Trotman and Charles Corbin. The 7-person Commission meets every Tuesday but is yet to have an in-depth discussion and make a decision regarding the hosting of LGE.
At his press conference yesterday, Norton continued to further his party’s call for a “clean voters list.”
“We have to first and we have been doing that (to) educate the people of Guyana as to the reason for a new voters list. There are some additional actions we will take but that is dependent on the production of the preliminary list of electors in which we’ll be able to confirm the actual figures. You will see from the figures that the list is padded,” he said.
He added that the Opposition has been and will continue to engage the international community while mobilizing support against any attempt to “go to elections without a clean voter’s list.” He said that they will continue to intensify their efforts to combat a padded list.
He also reiterated his call for GECOM Chair Claudette Singh to be removed from the post.
“…we do not see elections being held with a bloated list and with Claudette Singh as Chairman and there are many things we can do to put the pressure on the elections commission and Claudette Singh but we have first given her the opportunity to tender her resignation, as a decent judge would have served…[she] cannot claim to be independent and on every issue you’re voting with the People’s Progressive Party…so we have left the door open and we hope we don’t have to close it and Claudette Singh will do the decent thing and resign,” Norton said.
Earlier this year, Minister of Local Government and Regional Development Nigel Dharamlall had said that the elections would be held by the end of 2022.
“We believe in democracy. We believe in people’s choices. We believe that for our country to continue to evolve, for development to come flowingly to our people, that we must have local government elections. We are going to have local government elections this year.
“We have budgeted billions of dollars for local government elections and we are going to have local government (elections) this year,” Dharamlall told the National Assembly during his contribution to the 2022 budget debate.
GECOM was allocated $4.1 billion in the 2022 budget.
