The spate of reforms that begun in the early 1990s were intended to drastically transform the manner in which elections are administered in Guyana at the local, regional and national levels. Those reforms were also specifically designed to ensure that Guyanese could have confidence that their will was being protected and reflected in the outcome of elections which should at all times be transparent, free and fair.
This is exactly the reason behind a decision to put enough measures in place to ensure that the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) is insulated from Executive interference in the performance of its functions. And by virtue of Article 226 of the Constitution, GECOM, like other constitutional Commissions, shall not be subject to the direction and control of any other person or authority. As a consequence, schedules for the conduct of general, regional and Local Government Elections are decided upon by the Commission once a date for the election is announced by the President.
Also, it is the Commission which decides on the location of polling stations and counting centres; assignment of voters to polling stations, arrangements to be made in and around polling stations and counting centres and all related matters. It is also the Commission’s responsibility to correct any reported deficiencies and valid objections made before, during or after the staging of elections at any level.
As of late, there have been a slew of criticisms from the main Opposition People’s Progressive Party (PPP) about the process and the alleged indifference displayed by the Commission to flagrant violations of electoral law and time-honoured procedures as well as practices.
The PPP has been raising alarm across the country too that there may be sinister plans in place to rig the upcoming Local Government Elections because of GECOM‘s posture and its unwillingness to assist the Party in addressing the concerns of many of its candidates. GECOM too, surprisingly, has been quite in the midst of many of these allegations offering only basic and blanket comments to media personnel who enquire about the entity’s rationale behind many decisions that appear odd.
Even though Nomination Day concluded last week, GECOM has not yet offered an official reason why it could not remove people’s names as backers and candidates before the deadline was arrived at, despite them stating publicly that they were fooled into signing lists for the A Partnership for National Unity, the Alliance For Chance and to a lesser extent the PPP.
The entity has failed to address concerns raised about the disappearance of its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at critical intervals of the electoral process when duly appointed Commissioners were seeking their intervention to resolve various problems.
Surely, these two most senior GECOM officials understand the ‘danger of the single story’ being told by the PPP and reported in the press and on social media. Their integrity demands that they immediately address all of the concerns of the Opposition and ruling parties contesting the upcoming polls.
Integrity in public life also demands that they do all that is necessary to sanitise the voters if there are dead people, non-nationals and overseas-based Guyanese contained therein.
GECOM cannot allow the Opposition or any stakeholder to get the impression that it is losing its independence or becoming politically biased. It can ill-afford a resurgence of the view that its officers were being compromised and part of a process that allows for rigged elections at the local level. The entity must be seen at all times professional and completely independent as the Constitution envisages.
It must understand that the blunders made at the 2015 elections are still fresh in the minds of many and the PPP’s campaign to expose anything it deems sinister has not ended. This means that GECOM must assert its creditability and salvage its reputation if any stakeholder is to back the results that will emanate from the upcoming LGEs.
