Chief Election Officer (CEO) Vishnu Persaud has provided an updated work plan to the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) which indicates that the Secretariat would be ready to host Local Government Elections (LGE) no earlier than January 30, 2023.
However, once again, he has been directed to revise the plan to reflect a date that is earlier, according to Commissioner Vincent Alexander.
During a brief interview with Stabroek News yesterday, Alexander explain-ed that the CEO presented the work plan which indicated that some timelines have been missed which led to the January 30, 2023 proposal.
“We had some discussions on the work plan and it showed that the timelines were missed and based on that the date has been revised to January 30. However, we have asked the CEO to relook at the plan with the hopes of coming up with an earlier date,” Alexander said.
Earlier, Persaud had proposed a date of February 13, 2023 as the earliest that the Commission would be in a state of readiness for the elections. Prior to that, Persaud had proposed a date of December 12, 2022, for the polls. Alexander had said that the date fell outside of the statutory deadline of the Commission and as such the CEO was asked to revise it.
Local Government Elec-tions 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.
After the Commission approves the work plan of the Elections Commission Secretariat, it would then indicate its readiness to the Minister of Local Govern-ment and Regional Deve-lopment and the proposed date. The Minister would then, on the advice of GECOM, announce the date for LGE.
Once the date is announced, GECOM would announce Nomina-tion Day and begin preparation for the procurement of indelible ink, ballot papers and other election-related materials.
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 chang-ed or corrected their information, 7,667 applied for replacement identification cards and 1,940 registrants retook their ID photos.
At the beginning of June, the Commission’s Secretariat released a list of vacancies for “polling day staff for Local Government Elections.” The Commis-sion is looking for Presid-ing 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.
Earlier in August, GECOM announced that it will embark on a countrywide claims and objection exercise from Monday, August 22. The aim of the exercise is to produce an official list of electors (OLE) and it will be conducted at all the GECOM permanent Registration Offices in the 10 Administrative Regions.
