Home News GECOM “willingly & wittingly” violated Guyanese electorate’s rights in allowing broadcast of...
The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) was blasted by a group of distinguished regional leaders for violating the rights of the Guyanese electorate by allowing the national broadcast of the Observation Reports – a move which has the potential to expose electors to discrimination and harassment.
The Observation Reports – which included numerous unsubstantiated allegations made primarily by the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) coalition – was allowed to be broadcast countrywide, despite stern objections from almost every stakeholder.
But the high-level Caricom delegation, which scrutinised the activity, said it was “appalled” by GECOM’s decision to allow the Reports to be nationally broadcast – compromising the safety of the electors and breaching international norms.
By doing so, the Elections Commission “willingly and wittingly” violated the rights of the Guyanese electorate, the Caricom team reasoned in the report it submitted to the entity’s Chairperson, Retired Justice Claudette Singh.
“For some unfathomable reason a decision was taken by GECOM to not only display the Observation Reports during the tabulation of the SoRs [Statements of Recount] at the end of the day, but to read the contents of the Observation Reports with the identified serial numbers of the voters.
“While names were not called, anyone familiar with the OLE [Official List of Electors] which was widely circulated throughout Guyana and on display at least a week before poll day and on poll day within their respective districts, could easily identify the voters,” the Caricom Team explained in the report.
In fact, the Caricom team said it was “appalled that an institution charged with the responsibility for the conduct of elections would in any way compromise the safety of the elector, not to speak of the violations of international norms regarding the ballot”.
The regional group pointed out that the Representation of the People Act makes “absolutely no reference” to the Observation Reports which became a focal point of the recount process.
The Caricom team said Observation Reports are administrative contraptions to chronicle miscellaneous issues and which if carefully used can derive great benefits to an Election Commission to identify possible problems and to undertake corrective measures.
However, as it were, the team noted that “these reports became integral component of the recount process and an invaluable tool for those seeking to discredit the recount”.
Violated rights of Guyanese
The team further highlighted that International Public Law (IPL) provides a number of obligations for democratic or integrity-based elections and has resulted in the development of an acceptable framework for the conduct of credible elections based on a set of democratic standards.
Also noting that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is the most widely subscribed treaty guaranteeing participatory rights, the Caricom team said “minimally, the political covenant establishes the three basic requirements and guarantees for the conduct of genuine (democratic) elections and the expressed intent of the will of the people as the basis for the selection of a government.”
Article 25 of the Covenant clearly states that: Every citizen shall have the right and opportunity, without any of the distinctions mentioned in Article 2 and without unreasonable restrictions; participate in the conduct of public affairs, directly or through freely chosen representatives; to vote and to be elected at genuine periodic elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret ballot, guaranteeing the free expression of the will of the voters.
Additionally, Articles 2, 12, 14, 19, 22, and 26, address issues of process-focused rights and individual rights and freedoms seen as vital to ensuring the will of the people.
Moreover, the Caricom team cited the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) which also provides core rights as it pertains to guarantees for the enjoyment of political rights and fundamental freedoms.
Guyana, the Caricom Observers reminded, is a signatory to a number of instruments of IPL including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. “So too is Guyana a party to the UN Convention against Corruption,” it noted.
The group documented all of these conventions to argue the point that as a result, in the conduct of elections, Guyana is bound by the provisions requiring certain political and civic rights “which extend also to the rights of the will of the people to be secured in choosing their elected representatives”.
It is against this backdrop that the Caricom team expressed that it was, “therefore, of the firm view that GECOM willing[ly] and wittingly violated the rights of the Guyanese electorate in facilitating these requests and in permitting the national audio broadcast of the Observation Reports.”
The Caricom team explained that “the reading of the Observation Reports with the mention of the serial number of voters in the country has the potential to expose the elector to harassment and quite possibly worse, and GECOM must be held accountable for such.”
