FGM backtracks at CCJ, abandons bid calling to void 2025 elections

…now seeks constitutional ruling for future elections only

After initially asking the court to declare the September 1, 2025, elections “null, void, and of no legal effect” if the Forward Guyana Movement (FGM) were excluded from the ballot in certain regions, the Attorney for FGM candidate Krystal Fisher, Dr Vivian Williams, on Thursday reversed course, urging the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) to treat the matter solely as a constitutional motion for future elections, with no impact on the 2025 polls. However, attorneys for respondents in the case, the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), and the Attorney General (AG) argued that to do so would set a dangerous precedent.
In the initial ruling before the High Court in August 2025 the litigant sought the court’s relief in having “an order restraining the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM)… from proceeding with the conduct of the forthcoming General and Regional Elections unless and until the FGM… was duly included on the ballots in all ten (10) electoral regions.”

However, Williams on Thursday adjusted his approach and asked the court to simply address the issue of constitutional rights, its bearing on future elections and simply disregard previous filings about overturning the 2025 elections.
“There will be no consequence for the elections that has already been held. The results would stand; nothing would change. The holding of Elections is peripheral, and in fact, it is the determination of the matter, even though the elections has concluded, as a significant function that the court ought to exercise,” Williams noted.
Dr Williams appeared to have yet again modified his argument following the previous ruling by the Court of Appeal (COA) that reliefs being sought in the case would need to be dealt with in an elections petition, over which only the High Court has jurisdiction. In its ruling in October 2025, the COA ruled that it had no jurisdiction to hear the reliefs sought by the appellant since it sought to bring into question the legality of the 2025 elections.

“Playing with fire”
Attorney for GECOM, Anthony Astaphan, cautioned that the court could be “playing with fire” to go down such a road as to disregard the original reliefs sought and now determine the case as a constitutional motion. “The case started out as a challenge to the intended elections. There was a declaration saying, ‘A declaration of any election held without the inclusion of all political parties on the ballot that has satisfied the legal requirements to contest the national elections are null, void, and of no legal effect.’ That is a challenge to the election. So he wanted to stop it,” Astaphan recalled.
“I would suggest that we keep in mind the procedures for invoking the elections jurisdiction of the court because if you are saying a system has issues depriving citizens of their right to vote, then to bypass it and come with a constitutional motion that has no credible, relevant, objective relief for rectifying the elections results, I think, is playing with fire. It would open a gate for horses to run through… Whether or not the framework for registration or voting violates a constitutional provision, that should be sorted out during the hearing of the elections petition.”
Astaphan also warned about the ripple effect of such a move.
“I think that is also very, very important. The other note of caution I have is to be careful about creating an avenue to bypass the election laws of the country and the constitutional requirements that we have that the High Court has the exclusive jurisdiction to deal with a variety of different matters. To make a determination as to whether something triggers the elections’ jurisdiction of the court, it has to look at what was in fact pleaded and what was sought in the application made, and not by counsel saying, ‘Oh, we will go through the process now, but we’re not going to ask for any relief,’ and so on,” Astaphan noted. Also touching on the point of jurisdiction, AG Anil Nandlall warned that the issues addressed in Fisher’s case are issues that need to be dealt with in an elections petition.
Making his point, Nandlall referenced the 1973 case of Seecomar Singh et anor v R C Butler and the 1968 case of Gladys Petrie vs the Attorney General. “Once it activates a process that affects the legality of an election, then the matter assumes a different character… I dare say, respectfully, that if you interfere with this sacred and central principle, we will run into problems in actions being filed ante-elections. Politically these matters have been settled in the Caribbean, and I will go through cases to show where the court has repeatedly said, ‘Wait until the elections have concluded.’ The matter first arose in Petrie,” Nandlall noted.

Provisions well settled
“The Court of Appeal and High Court were frontally asked to make orders that would have the effect of setting aside elections. In the High Court there were injunctions that sought to restrain GECOM from proceeding with the elections. Issues that fall within the parameters of the provisions of Article 163 of the constitution. The provisions of 163 are well settled.”
The appellant in the case, Fisher, is a Region Nine resident and FGM national candidate. She is challenging GECOM’s long-standing practice of excluding political parties from ballots in regions where they have not submitted geographical constituency lists. The filing contends that this practice violates citizens’ constitutional right to vote for a party of their choice.
Under Guyana’s electoral system, the 65 seats in the National Assembly are distributed, with 40 filled based on votes from a National Top-Up List and 25 allocated through geographical constituency representation. Political parties must submit both a National Top-Up List and respective Geographical Constituency Lists to contest the elections; however, parties only need to submit a minimum of six of the 10 constituencies in order to be approved to contest the national elections.

No submission but then complaining
The legal challenge revolves around GECOM’s exclusion of FGM from ballots in Regions Seven, Eight, and Nine, areas where the party did not submit geographical constituency lists.
On this issue Astaphan argued, “It is not a question of fault; it’s a question of not electing to submit a list then complaining of being denied a right by GECOM. My point is the legislation gives you a right to contest or not to contest. It gives the party the legal choice.” However, Dr Williams is arguing that the Constitution does not provide any provisions to empower the Representation of the People Act (ROPA) to restrict political parties desirous of contesting the national elections.
“This appeal ultimately turns on one question: where does the law authorise the exclusion of an approved national list on the ballot of some regions but not others? The respondents say that authority is found in the Representation of the People Act. If the law authorises a restriction on the franchise by preventing electors in some regions from voting for an approved nationalist available to other electors elsewhere, the source of that authority must be found in the Constitution itself. Constitutional rights cannot be diminished by implication or by ordinary legislation acting without constitutional warrant,” Williams argued.
“The Act in no way provides that an approved national list must be excluded from the ballot because no geographical constituency list has been submitted for that region. The respondent construction depends on words that Parliament did not enact. The two questions that determine this appeal, therefore, are two distinct parts and questions. The first is whether the Constitution authorises Parliament to enact the restriction complained of and whether Parliament, through the representation of the act, in fact enacted those restrictions.”
At the core of the arguments of both sides are the interpretations of articles contained in Guyana’s Constitution and ROPA. From the Constitution, sections at the heart of the arguments include Article 13, which speaks to inclusionary democracy; Article 59, which enshrines a Guyanese citizen’s right to vote; Article 159, which places conditions and limitations on eligibility for a citizen’s right to vote; and Article 160, which outlines that voters cast their votes for a list of candidates and not individuals. Sections 39 and 11 of the Representation of the People’s Act we also cited.
In her original application before the High Court, Fisher asked the court to declare that this incident violates Articles 13, 59, and 159 of the Constitution, as well as a denial of her right, as a candidate, to ballot access and to contest in the elections.
Thursday’s hearing was presented before CCJ President Justice Winston Anderson, Justice Maureen Rajnauth-Lee, Justice Denys Barrow, Justice Chile Eboe-Osuji, and Justice Arif Bulkan.
At the end of the hearing, Justice Anderson informed the parties the matter will be subsequently notified of a date for the ruling in the matter.