Draft electoral reforms: Second set of reforms will deal with voters’ registration – AG

Amid calls for the reforms of Guyana’s electoral laws to address issues relating to voters’ fraud, Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister Anil Nandlall S.C. has reassured that there would be another installment of the draft reforms that would deal specifically with registration.

“I see many of the criticisms that are levelled against these amendments relate to registration. Registration will come. Those amendments are on their way, they are under preparation, and they will be disseminated shortly to the public, and they will be the subject of a consultative exercise just as these proposals are,” Nandlall said during this week’s edition of his programme – Issues In The News.
Early in November, Government published the draft electoral reforms with proposed changes to the Representation of the People Act (ROPA) for public consultation before the document is finalised and taken to the National Assembly.
While the Government wants to have this done at the earliest possible opportunity, it also wants to have the widest possible engagement with stakeholders. These consultations include with the various political parties, including the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Opposition.
However, the Coalition Opposition has criticised the draft electoral laws, with Opposition Leader Joseph Harmon contending that the proposed changes do not reflect concerns that the APNU/AFC has, especially as those concerns relate to voters’ impersonation and having a clean list of voters.
But AG Nandlall explained during the programme that the reform process is twofold. He noted that this first component deals exclusively with changes to ROPA; that is, the process from the time a date for election is propagated or proclaimed by the President until the declaration of final results.
“That is the process that we are now dealing with,” he outlined.
According to Nandlall, the other component that would be embarked upon would deal with the registration of electors, from the time the registration process begins until the Claims and Objections (C&O) exercise.
“I wanted to make those fundamental points, because people continue to level criticisms against this process that are misconceived and misguided simply because their lack of appreciation of the width, breath or limitations, if you wish, of this exercise of which we are currently engaged,” he posited.
An overhaul of the country’s electoral laws can see the Chief Elections Officer (CEO) at the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) facing as much as life imprisonment for committing fraud, while others can similarly face hefty fines and jail time for any related offence.
The draft updated electoral laws also outline a clear process for the request of a recount, including empowering the Chairman of GECOM to grant that request.
Under the proposed laws, the CEO must immediately post the District Tabulation Forms on the Commission’s website as soon as he receives them from the Returning Officers.
Other persons involved in the electoral process can face fines as high as $10 million, and can equally be jailed for life if they breach any provision as outlined in the proposed updated Act.
The immediate former CEO of GECOM, Keith Lowenfield; his Deputy Roxanne Myers, and the Returning Officer for Region Four at last year’s polls, Clairmont Mingo, are currently before the court on a raft of electoral fraud-related charges.
Other electoral officials as well as politicians are before the court for allegedly attempting to alter the results of last year’s elections.
Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Shalimar Ali-Hack, SC, has hired a team of special prosecutors consisting of about six lawyers to prosecute the electoral fraud charges on behalf of the State.
The plethora of matters is currently before three Magistrates – the Chief Magistrate and Magistrates Sherdel Isaacs-Marcus and Leron Daly.
Lowenfield’s election report claimed that the then governing APNU/AFC Coalition garnered 171,825 votes while the PPP/C gained 166,343 votes.
How he arrived at those figures is still unknown, since the certified results from the national recount exercise supervised by GECOM and a high-level team from the Caribbean Community (Caricom) showed that the PPP/C won with 233,336 votes while the coalition garnered 217,920.
The recount exercise also proved that Mingo heavily inflated the figures in Region Four in favour of the then caretaker APNU/AFC regime – which was defeated by a No-Confidence Motion in December 2018.
In August this year, GECOM had voted to terminate the employment contracts of Lowenfield, Myers, and Mingo.
The firing of the officials was met with much satisfaction by the Government, which viewed it as a step in the right direction to restoring public confidence in GECOM as it gears up to hold Local Government Elections (LGE).
Only Wednesday, the seven-member Elections Commissions selected the two most “qualified” candidates from a shortlisted group of six to be interviewed for the post.