Electoral Reforms: 2nd set of proposed amendments to be out soon – AG

With consultations currently ongoing on the proposed changes to the Representation of the People’s Act (ROPA), the Guyana Government is currently finalising a second set of amendments that would be released to the public soon.
This is according to Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister Anil Nandlall, SC. During this week’s edition of his programme – Issues In The News – he explained that these new reforms are proposed changes to the Registration Act.
“The second set of reforms, or proposed reforms relating to the Registration Act, shall be made public within a matter of days, as the work have been essentially completed in draft form. That will also be sent out, using a similar mechanism, inviting public consultations and recommendations and views,” Nandlall disclosed.
This announcement was made just one day after the Attorney General had met with stakeholders who made submissions on the proposed amendments to the ROPA, which were released to the public last November, and persons were invited to give feedback.
Submissions were received from several persons, groups and organisations, including at least one political party and the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM). Those who made submissions were invited to an engagement with the Legal Affairs Minister on Monday, but only representatives from two of those entities – the Private Sector Commission (PSC) and the Electoral Reform Group – showed up.
“We went through their respective recommendations and thoroughly interrogated them and examined them. I also took the opportunity of explaining the nature and purport of the proposed amendments, the rationale for the amendments, and how the amendments will impact positively upon strengthening the electoral machinery,” the Legal Affairs Minister stated.
According to Nandlall, he pointed out to the stakeholders that these proposed amendments are specific to statutory reforms, while other issues, such as changing the country’s political system and restructuring GECOM, which were among the recommendations made by the stakeholders, will have to be done through the constitutional reform process that is slated to commence shortly.
“I also detailed the limitations of the engagement by highlighting the fact that this aspect of the reforms will not address constitutional matters, because those matters will require a two-thirds majority and this is a Government-driven process. We don’t have a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly. So, what we are concerned about here is reforms to the statutory provisions touching and concerning the elections – the Registration Act and the Representation of the People Act, in particular,” he asserted.
Nevertheless, AG Nandlall said that Monday’s engagement with the stakeholders was “lively and interactive.”

He went on to note, however, that Government will have a separate engagement with GECOM on the GECOM recommendations submitted.
“We will be meeting the Guyana Elections Commission, and go through these amendments with them. The Guyana Elections Commission, of course, is an important stakeholder organization, and we going to treat with them differently. They have also made many recommendations and many proposals for amendments. Their submissions will be comprehensively dealt with at an engagement which we will have shortly,” the AG stated.
In the meantime, Government would continue with the consultative process on the host of proposed changes to ROPA, and will hold another engagement session with other stakeholders who made submissions.

To prevent a recurrence of the historic March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections, which resulted in a five-month political impasse caused by blatant rigging attempts, the ROPA amendments were released for public consultation before the document is finalised and taken to the National Assembly.
The People’s Progressive Party/Civic administration had said it wanted to have the widest possible engagement with stakeholders, including the various political parties, on the proposed amendments to ROPA.
But the only political party to make recommendations on the proposed ROPA changes is the A New and United Guyana (ANUG) – one of the new parties formed to contest the 2020 elections. Additionally, Opposition-nominated GECOM Commissioner Charles Corbin has also made a submission.
Last month, Vice President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo pointed out at a press conference that the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Opposition has been making various public statements about electoral reforms, but did not use the opportunity during those three months to submit their feedback on the proposed ROPA amendments.
“But they chose not to. We hope in Parliament they will participate [when the ROPA amendments are tabled],” he posited.
At the time, the Vice President announced that Government is looking to put in place laws that would allow GECOM to transparently remove the names of dead persons from the voters list amid concerns of it being bloated.
Jagdeo told reporters that Government wants the law to be very explicit as it relates to the removal of dead persons – something which GECOM has the constitutional right to do.
In fact, he proposed a methodology that would see these changes to the list being done on a large scale, starting with the Chief Election Officer (CEO) obtaining a list of all the dead people for every year as well as historically. These names, he noted, must be shared publicly before they are removed from the Voters’ List.
“We want to make the process transparent, so GECOM should do that on a large scale, but, by law, they must share the list with all the political parties, and publicise the list of dead people in the newspapers. We want to put that into the law, so every time they remove dead people, they must share this with all the parties in Guyana, and publish it in the newspapers, not just do it in GECOM on their own,” Jagdeo stated.
Back in August 2019, Chief Justice (ag) Roxane George had ruled that GECOM cannot deregister persons from the National Register of Registrants (NRR) – from which the Voters’ List is compiled – unless they are dead or otherwise disqualified under Article 159 (2), (3) and (4) of the Constitution.
An overhaul of the country’s electoral laws can see the Chief Elections Officer (CEO) at the Election Commission facing as much as life imprisonment for committing fraud, while others can similarly face hefty fines and jail time for any related offence.
The immediate former CEO of GECOM, Keith Lowenfield; his Deputy Roxanne Myers, and the Returning Officer for Region Four at the last polls, Clairmont Mingo, were terminated last August for their role in efforts to derail democracy at the 2020 elections. The trio is also currently before the court on a raft of electoral fraud-related charges.
While the firing of these three senior officials and a general overhaul at the Elections Secretariat were met with much satisfaction by stakeholders, it is widely agreed that much more needs to be done to restore public confidence in the Elections Commission, especially as it gears up to hold Local Government Elections (LGE) later this year.