GECOM approves symbols for 21 political parties ahead of 2025 elections

…1 party bows out as race heats up

The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has approved the symbols of 21 political parties that have signalled their interest in contesting the September 1, 2025, General and Regional Elections.
Initially, 22 parties had submitted symbols for approval by GECOM. However, Deputy Chief Elections Officer Aneal Giddings told reporters at a media informative session on Wednesday that GECOM had previously approved 19 symbols while three parties were asked to make adjustments to their symbols.
Those changes were made and resubmitted, and at the Elections Commission’s statutory meeting on Tuesday, final approval was given.
According to the DCEO, the Republic Party of Guyana headed by Joel Hamilton, has since pulled out of the race.

With their symbols now approved, these 21 parties will now have to submit their respective lists of candidates to the Elections Commission on Nominations Day, slated for Monday, July 14. These include a Geographical Constituency List, a National Top-Up List and a Regional Democratic Council List.
Each party is required to submit their lists of candidates for the election of a president, members of the National Assembly and members of the Regional Democratic Councils to the Chief Elections Officer.
The law prescribed that the submissions of the lists of candidates and nominators will have to be done strictly on Nominations Day and within the timeframe set – no time earlier or later. Consequently, these lists will be presented to the Chief Elections Officer, Vishnu Persaud, on Monday from 10:00 to 14:00 at the Umana Yana in Kingston, Georgetown.
Already, several political parties have camped out outside the Umana Yana to secure their spot for Monday’s Nomination Day. But the GECOM official explained that there will be guidelines provided to the parties outlining the order in which they will make their submissions.
Nominators, candidates
Each party’ National Top-Up List should comprise 300-330 nominators, 42 candidates (persons to be elected to sit in the National Assembly), who all need a signed statutory declaration form in the presence of a Commissioner of Oaths or Justice of Peace, and include the name of the presidential candidate.
The Statutory Declaration form is what candidates sign to indicate that they are Guyanese and conform to other requirements set out in the law, such as that they are not a citizen of any other country.
Meanwhile, the Geographical Constituency (Administrative Regions) List must include 150-175 nominators from each constituency.
With regards to the regional elections, the Regional Democratic Council List must comprise 150-175 nominators for each constituency – all residing in the said region – and 12 to 36 candidates also from within the region. They too are required to sign a statutory form.
Candidates and nominators can only appear on one party’s list, including on both the National Top-up and Geographical Constituency Lists, but can only appear on one of that party’s geographical lists.
With Guyana’s National Assembly comprised of 65 elected members, 25 of these are elected from the 10 geographical constituencies and the remaining 40 from the national top-up list. Parties also have to ensure that one-third of the candidates nominated are female.
A breakdown of the 10 geographical constituencies shows that Regions One, Two, Five, Seven and 10 are allocated two seats each; Regions Three and Six get three seats each; Region Four is allocated seven seats; and Regions Eight and Nine get one seat each.
Political parties can contest a minimum of six of the 10 geographical constituencies, but when combined, those constituencies must amount to a total of 13 seats.

Defects/corrections
These requirements, as well as others, will be examined by the Chief Elections Officer, and those parties ’whose lists do not meet all the requirements will be deemed defective. However, the CEO will inform of the defective list(s), and the respective parties will have one day to make corrections and resubmit the lists.
According to Giddings, GECOM has software that it has been using since 2006, which has been fine-tuned over the years, to run the lists from each political party to identify defects such as repetition of names where they ought not to be.
For those lists with defects, the respective party will be informed by GECOM on July 15, and they will have until July 17 to make the corrections. GECOM will give final approval or disapproval of the lists on July 18. Thereafter, provisions are made for any party to take legal action to contest GECOM’s decision.
During this time also, parties can make withdrawals or notifications of the death of candidates to GECOM by July 15; submit withdrawals of lists by July 17; and submit notifications of the Joinder of Lists by July 21.
GECOM will then be publishing the final and approved lists, titles and symbols on July 23 after a rigorous vetting process to ensure that all the submissions are in compliance with the various legal practices and procedures.
Although GECOM has approved the list of 21 political parties, several of the smaller parties have since formed alliances with either other small parties or with much larger political parties. These changes will be reflected when GECOM publishes the final list on July 23.