Contending that the right criteria were not used to demarcate the boundaries of constituencies for upcoming Local Government Elections, opposition-appointed Commissioners have declared that they will not accept the report submitted to GECOM.
However, government-appointed Commissioner, Sase Gunraj, sees their refusal as a tactic to further drag out the process of arriving at an election date.
“The report clearly reflects the right criteria were not used in the process. They [field staff] walked around and made recommendations… we won’t consider this report because it was an irregular process,” opposition- appointed Commissioner Vincent Alexander said.
He argued that the report submitted did not state the methodology used in the verification and demarcation of the boundaries, and so casts doubt on the work done by the staff.
The criteria to be used for the exercise should be based on population, size of the community, and the geography, Alexander pointed out.
It was against this backdrop that the commissioners registered their dissatisfaction. Alexander told Stabroek News that a document for such an exercise was established in 2009/2010 and the evidence was presented to commission.
He explained that there were arguments that no such document was in place, but after presenting their evidence, Chair of the Commission, retired Justice Claudette Singh gave the undertaking for the document to be located and presented to the commission for perusal.
Gunraj contended that the opposing commissioners are only aiming to derail the process and preventing the commission from having discussions to set a possible date for the Local Government Elections which are overdue.
Following objections over the controversial Order 50 of 2022 promulgated by the Local Government Minister Nigel Dharamlall and the GECOM’s Chair’s ruling that Dharamlall’s order is null and void, GECOM took a decision to embark on a field exercise to confirm the demarcation of constituency boundaries wherever necessary in preparation for Local Government Elections.
The Chief Election Officer (CEO), Vishnu Persaud, was tasked with conducting field work to map the boundaries of nineteen local authority areas and constituencies within those boundaries.
Alexander had pointed out that when reconfiguring a constituency, certain criteria must be assessed before setting a boundary. In this regard, it might require extending boundaries of part of an existing constituency due to population growth or shift.
Following a lengthy delay, Local Government Elections were scheduled for March 13 next year but arguments over constituencies and how lists were to be extracted for the polls point to a setback in the scheduled elections’ timeline.
