Minister of Local Government and Regional Development, Nigel Dharamlall yesterday informed GECOM that June 12, 2023, has been selected as the date for the long overdue Local Government Elections (LGE).
Dharamlall last night while confirming to Stabroek News the appointed date, said that the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) had written to him saying that they are in a state of readiness.
“They wrote to me and said that they are ready and will be prepared to hold the elections by May 22, 2023 the earliest.”
The announcement of the new date comes months after a postponement by GECOM. The commission was forced to push back the elections, which was initially slated for March 13. That date was however derailed by GECOM having to reopen the Claims and Objections process whilst dealing with a dispute over the demarcation of constituencies.
A legal challenge was mounted by the main opposition APNU+AFC to contest the manner in which lists have been extracted for constituencies. This triggered a recommendation by Chief Election Officer Vishnu Persaud to the GECOM Chair for a further period of claims and objections to the various registers.
Persaud had told GECOM Chair, retired Justice Claudette Singh, that should the opposition concerns not be addressed, the image of the elections body could be tarnished for failing to guard fundamental standards for democratic elections. He suggested that the coalition could possibly boycott the upcoming polls if the concerns are not addressed.
The APNU arm of the APNU+AFC coalition has been claiming that the voters list was compiled without capturing voters in their correct constituency, thereby placing them at a disadvantage.
It was against this background that APNU’s Chief Scrutineer, Carol Smith-Joseph, moved to the High Court for an urgent hearing challenging GECOM’s method of compiling the voters lists to be used in the then proposed March 13 LGE.
In the legal challenge, Smith-Joseph argued that GECOM, in its preparation of the current voters list, did not act in accordance with the law and the constitution.
Persaud informed the commission’s chair that accepting the proposal would result in the postponement of the elections. He did not say for how long the elections could be postponed. Local government elections were due since the end of 2021.
The Chief Election Officer told the Chair, the proposal, once accepted “…would not only guarantee transparency and inclusivity, but would address the specific concern of the APNU+AFC coalition, but by extension engender participation of the coalition’s support base in the Local Government Elections.”
He stated that from views expressed by the opposition there are concerns that the electorate is being denied the opportunity to scrutinize the Registers of Voters. “It appears that the APNU+AFC is concerned that members of the public were not given the opportunity to (i) claim entry in the respective constituency RoVs, providing they qualify for such inclusion based on residency, and (ii) object to the inclusion of electors in constituency RoVs who do not meet the residency requirement for such inclusion.”
After months of deliberation on the supplemental work plan, the elections body on February 7 announced the new work plan was approved by the commission.
In this regard, the Secretariat will proceed with the full implementation of the relevant statutory and administrative activities to ensure the successful conduct of the elections in the eighty (80) Local Authority Areas (LAAs) countrywide, it said in a release.
Going forward, the GECOM Secretariat will immediately move to (i) roll out a robust civic and voter education programme, (ii) appoint Electoral Registrars and Assistant Electoral Registrars, and (iii) extract the Preliminary List of Voters (PLV).
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These activities are directly linked to the preparation of Registers of Voters for each of the 80 Local Authority Areas.
The release said that preparation for the conduct of Local Government Elections commenced in 2022. In this regard, it informed that the GECOM Secretariat had already completed the training of management and polling day staff for all LAAs, and the receipt of applications for and approval of symbols submitted by political parties, voluntary groups and individuals who intend to contest in the elections.
Local Government Elections were constitutionally due at the end of 2021 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 did commit to confirming a timeline after the appointment of a CEO.
At the beginning of June 2022, 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.
GECOM embarked on a continuous registration process back in March 2022, 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.
Late last September, the commission had concluded its claims and objections programme in preparation for the elections.
Justice Singh had told the media that LGE would be held by the end of November. Initially, Chief Election Officer Vishnu Persaud had proposed December 12 last year as polling day but that was rejected since it fell outside of the statutory timeline.
He came back with a date of February 13, 2023, but was asked to further revise it to mid-January. Earlier in October, Stabroek News reported that March 06, 2023, was being suggested as polling day. However, the Commission could not agree to Persaud’s work plan since there were ancillary issues to be addressed.
On October 20 last year, Dharamlall however announced that LGE would be held on March 13, 2023. That was the earliest date signified by Singh in her correspondence to him on when the polls could be held.
