Immediately after the No-Confidence Motion (NCM) was passed on Dec 21, 2018, Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo, in charge of the Government’s business in the National Assembly, spoke to the press in the presence of all the other members of the APNU/AFC Government. He said, “Guyanese must understand that the democratic process is sometimes unpredictable. You may have results that are not planned for…but the outcome has to be accepted…It may be a surprise to some, it may be a shock to others, it may be welcomed by some, and others may rejoice over the results, but that is how democracy works, and we are fully committed to the rule of law.”
Nagamootoo was fully au fait with the implications of Art 106, which commanded that the President and Cabinet resign immediately and elections be held in three months, having himself brought an NCM in November 2014 against the then PPP Government, which was sidestepped.
The following day, according to a local newspaper, “Senior officials of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) were late yesterday locked in planning meetings for elections, which are now constitutionally due within the next three months. Chief Elections Officer of GECOM, Keith Lowenfield, told (the newspaper) that he was meeting with his staff to derive a strategy for the earlier-than-expected polls.”
The following day, PRO of GECOM, Yolanda Yarde, elaborated: “For us at GECOM, it’s our constitutional mandate to conduct General and Regional Elections, as well as Local Government Elections. If that is the decision: that we will have to conduct elections within a short period, then we will have to ensure that those elections are held as required, because it’s our constitutional mandate. I’m sure that our Standard Operating Procedures will click into gear, and we will be prepared to execute elections at a time we have been asked to do.”
The PRO recognised the constitutional order under Art 61 which specifies that the President must proclaim a date for elections, which at that time was supposed to be March 21. The decision by the Government to challenge the validity of the NCM in the courts after it was affirmed by the Speaker of the National Assembly as valid should not have changed the schedule of the GECOM Secretariat, especially after the High Court affirmed the decision in January 2019. During that time, the President’s unilaterally appointed GECOM Chairman, James Patterson, had been ailing, but it was upon his return from an extended sick leave that the posture on the readiness of GECOM for elections took an ominous turn.
In the first week of February, the CEO then announced that it would take 148 days to bring off an election, and claimed that nothing had been done by GECOM since late December, since he was waiting for a “green light” from the Commission. The Commission, however, was now firmly echoing the Government’s line, with Chairman Patterson reflexively voting with the three Government Commissioners to constitute a majority.
And this was the delaying pattern that would characterise the Government’s refusal to countenance an early election, which pattern would be repeated after the Appellate Court had reversed the High Court’s decision, and then after the CCJ had reversed the Appellate Court’s decision on June 18th 2019. By this time, seven months had elapsed and GECOM was nowhere closer to being election ready.
The CCH gave clear orders that the Constitutional timeline must be followed. To wit, the Government’s Judicial recourse can be viewed as placing on “pause” the 3-month calendar of Art 106, which was removed on June 18 with their definitive ruling. The President should have then proclaimed Sept 18 as the elections date, and he and the Cabinet should have then resigned, along with dissolving parliament; and GECOM should have worked for the earliest elections date.
With GECOM’s Secretariat now following an order made surreptitiously by the illegally appointed Chairman on July 11, for H2H registration, they are clearly contravening the Court’s order.
The PPP’s writ for the CEO to be cited for contempt is apropos.
