During the month of May a team from the European Union led by parliamentarian Mr Javier Nart came here to assess the extent to which electoral reform recommendations made by the EU Observer Mission in 2020 had been addressed. The Election Follow-up Mission, or EFM, as it is known in its abbreviated form, has produced a report which has been handed over to the government, although as yet they have had no comment to make on it. It is not something they can afford to entirely ignore, since the report states that these recommendations would be prioritised when any future electoral technical aid was under consideration. This, said the mission, is because they had the highest potential to enhance the quality of the electoral process.
The EFM was not unmindful of the high stakes involved in the 2025 general elections, remarking that “whichever party wins, it will have at its disposal unprecedented financial resources to implement its development policies”.
In June 2020, the EU Observer Mission had made a total of 26 recommendations, eight of which were listed as priority. Of these, the EFM noted in its review, 19 remained unaddressed, although there were several key ones where action had been taken. Among these were priority recommendations relating to the credibility of the tabulation process and the transparency of the declaration of results, all of which had been fully implemented.
The relevant measures were to be found in the Representation of the People (Amendment) Act of December last year, which attracted some criticism locally. That relating to the sub-division of Region Four for tabulation purposes was overcome by extending the subdivision approach to Regions Three and Six as well. But a problematic change remained in the form of the removal of the requirement that voters had to be resident in Guyana before they would qualify to be included on the voters’ register. Now all that is necessary is that they have a registered address in this country.
The use of the overseas vote has a sordid history in Guyana, which was why it was abolished. The Guyana Court of Appeal had in 2020 upheld the ruling that there is no residency requirement to bar persons already on the National Register of Registrants from voting,, which was the reason given by the government for its inclusion in the legislation. As the EFM noted, this change in the law was globally speaking, highly unusual, and could not be “characterised as a measure of reform.” Additionally it was also “not perceived to be politically neutral.” Leader of the Opposition Aubrey Norton had indicated his party’s preparedness to co-operate with the ruling party in changing the Constitution to prohibit diaspora voting, but AG Anil Nandlall disingenuously responded that the PPP/C would not be doing that without first going through a consultation process with Guyanese in general.
The PPP’s intransigence on the matter is unfortunate, since this may well become a major issue in 2025, contaminating the polls if not the results in the eye of whoever loses. Where these matters are concerned, it is essential that there be agreement across the political divide, and for the PPP/C now to push through a clause in the Act when it had campaigned so vigorously against overseas voting in PNC days is not just ironic, it has more than the whiff of hypocrisy about it.
The report stated that the implementation of two other priority recommendations was “apparently underway.” One of these related to reform of Gecom, and while legislation had been passed to establish the Constitution Reform Commission, whose terms of reference included the composition of that electoral body, the Commission had not yet been set up. It can only be commented that the governing party gives no appearance of having any great ambition to accelerate the matter of constitutional reform at any level.
The matter of Gecom is in any case of longstanding, since every observer mission since 1992 as well as others, has recommended its reform. It was originally intended to be a temporary solution but was institutionalised by the political parties. Stakeholders to whom the EFM spoke were of the view that the formula should be changed by including independent representatives of civil society and/or professional bodies. All of them, that is, except the PPP/C, who unsurprisingly argued it was well-nigh impossible to find truly independent people in a polarised society such as this. In 2020, they said, it was the technical staff who attempted to manipulate the results, not Gecom, which saved the situation. This is to ignore the role played by the Chair of that body, which has still not been clearly explained. In any event, they said they would await the outcome of the national consultations before making a final decision.
Another matter which is very familiar to Guyanese is the infamous list system, which the report refers to as the “closed list system”. It came into being as a consequence of an unholy alliance between the main parties who wanted to prevent their members crossing the floor, as well as give leaders a total grip on their parliamentary representatives. It is not only anti-democratic, as the EFM says, because voters do not know at ballot time who the ‘Representative of the List’ will select to represent them, but also because it restricts meaningful debate within the Chamber itself, as no one has the fortitude to express an individual opinion for fear of being removed and replaced. It could have been addressed as an amendment in the Representation of the People Act, said the report, but wasn’t.
The list system also affects meeting the quota for women, while in terms of exclusion, the report noted the absence of minorities, namely the Indigenous people in the election administration, something which needed to be rectified.
Included among the other 19 recommendations which were not addressed were campaign financing reforms and dispute resolution, although the EFM said that the government had publicly committed to implementing campaign financing reforms when the mission was in the country. “This,” it said, “had the potential to lead to the implementation of another priority recommendation.” Electoral dispute reform was another priority recommendation, since at the present time disputes usually ended up in the courts where the delays might last years.
Then, of course, there was the matter of using state resources for political campaigning, which it had been recommended should be prohibited in order to create a more level playing field. This was in addition to regulation of the conduct and time-frame of the campaign. Nothing had so far been accomplished in that regard.
Media regulation had accounted for four recommendations in 2020, and there had been no progress on any of them, said the EFM. One of them involved the decriminalisation of defamation, which would require an amendment to the Criminal Law (Offences) Act. It might be mentioned that the International Press Institute travelled round the Caribbean in 2012 trying to persuade governments to take this provision off the statute books. Only Jamaica and Grenada did so fully, as well as Trinidad partially. They came here too, and were given the impression that the government was amenable at that time to a change in the law. However, nothing happened.
Then there was the matter of the regulation of the state media, another priority recommendation, and amendment to the Broadcasting Act on which there had also been no progress. The fact that there has been no move to develop the public service obligations of state media so they continue to operate as agents of government, will surprise no one here. As for transforming the state media into a public service broadcaster, that doesn’t sound like anything the government will undertake any time soon.
It is not just that the government is making more haste and less speed on the reforms, it is also that the opposition has not applied its mind to what needs to be done in the interests of our democracy and pressurise the administration accordingly, not to mention collaborate with them if at all possible.
