GECOM shuts door on seat rotation in Joinder Lists

…only party with most votes can occupy Parliamentary seat

The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has provided clarity on the legal procedures governing the Joinder of Lists and the Filling of Vacancies in the National Assembly, following extensive deliberations at its Statutory Meeting held on Thursday. In a statement issued by the Commission, GECOM confirmed that its determinations were guided strictly by the legal framework established in the Representation of the People Act (ROPA). The meeting focused on how seats are allocated when political parties combine their candidate lists — a process known as the joinder of lists — as well as how vacancies in Parliament are to be lawfully filled.

Joinder
GECOM in a statement reiterated that under Section 22(1) of ROPA, two or more political parties may formally combine their candidate lists for the purpose of seat allocation in the National Assembly. This combination, termed a joinder of lists, allows parties to pool their valid votes to increase the likelihood of gaining parliamentary representation.
However, the Commission noted that the joinder is not reflected as a single option on the ballot paper. Instead, each party in the combination remains individually listed; for the purposes of allocating seats, the combination is treated as a single list.

Seats within joinder
GECOM outlined the process to determine how seats are distributed within a combined list, stating that the valid votes received by each list in the joinder are summed (Vote Aggregation); it must then be determined whether the combination as a whole won any seats (Eligibility for Seats). The total valid votes cast across all contesting lists are divided by 65—the number of seats in the National Assembly—to establish the national electoral quota (National Allocation). If the combination secured seats, the internal quota is determined by dividing the combination’s total valid votes by the number of seats won (Internal Allocation). Each party’s votes are then divided by this internal quota to calculate how many seats it receives (Seat Distribution). If there is one remaining seat within the combination, it goes to the party with the largest number of surplus votes (Surplus Votes). If only one seat is won by the combination, that seat is awarded to the party with the highest number of valid votes (Single Seat Scenario).
Importantly, each party in the joinder retains its own Representative and Deputy Representative, who alone are authorized to extract candidates from their list to become Members of Parliament — but only if the party has been allocated seats.

Filling of vacant seat
Addressing the procedures for filling parliamentary vacancies, GECOM cited Section 99A of ROPA, stating that if a seat becomes vacant outside of a general dissolution of Parliament, the replacement must be someone who is not currently an elected Member of Parliament; be qualified and willing to serve; be selected from the same list from which the original MP was elected.
Only the Representative or Deputy Representative of that list is empowered to extract the replacement member.
In November 2024, Chair of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Justice (Ret’d) Claudette Singh, had committed to resolving the then ongoing controversy involving the presence of Dr Asha Kissoon sitting in the National Assembly in a seat she had been occupying beyond the six-month term allotted to her party under the Joinder Agreement.
According to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) of the Joinder List, Dr Kissoon’s party, The New Movement (TNM), was entitled to occupy the opposition seat in the National Assembly for 91 days. That timeline had ended since November 2023, but Dr Kissoon had continued to occupy the parliamentary seat in a move that had sparked criticisms.
On March 2, 2020, TNM, ANUG, and the Liberty and Justice Party (LJP) had crafted a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in which it was agreed that they would merge the votes earned by them if those were sufficient to earn them a seat in Parliament, and they would share occupation of that seat in Parliament on a rotational basis that is proportionate to the votes each had earned.
At those elections, the number of votes secured by the three joinder parties were: 2657 by LJP – the most votes secured by a joinder party; 2313 by ANUG, and 244 by TNM. Based on the Joinder Agreement, each party was entitled to occupy the shared seat for a specific period.
The stipulated duration of the terms for each party was: two years, six months and 20 days for the LJP; two years five months for ANUG, and 91 days for TNM.