Govt more than doubles funding for GECOM ahead of upcoming elections

– election agency’s allocation moves from $100M in 2024 to $237M in 2025

Cognisant that Guyana is in an election year, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government has more than doubled its budgetary allocation to the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), with the election agency allocated almost $240 million to conduct its operations.
During his reading of the budget, Senior Minister in the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance, Dr Ashni Singh had alluded to the upcoming elections as the ultimate test of Guyana’s democracy, five years after the March 2020 General and Regional elections and its infamous five-month standoff that followed.
“Budget 2025 comes to this Honourable House just short of eight months before this Twelfth Parliament of Guyana will be dissolved in anticipation of General and Regional Elections. These elections will be held before the year is over and will mark an important milepost in our country’s journey to becoming a more mature democracy.”

“These will be the first elections since our still young democracy came under the unthinkable threat it did five years ago. Indeed, generations to come might scarcely imagine that so brazen a heist as that attempted in 2020, could ever have been contemplated, much less actually attempted, and in the glare of both broad daylight and today’s technology,” Singh noted.
The Finance Minister further spoke of the role the PPP/C Government has played in safeguarding and restoring democracy in Guyana, noting that his party prides itself on respecting the will of the people and being on the right side of history, while ultimately serving the people and making their welfare the centre of every policy and project implemented.
“It should seem fairly obvious that those who respect the will of the people will be infinitely more concerned about serving the people, than those who repeatedly defy and subvert the will of the people. The former understands that there is no other way to win hearts, minds, and votes, but simply to deliver the results that matter most to people,” Dr Singh said.
“The latter do not believe that they need to win hearts, minds, or votes, preferring instead to rely entirely on what His Excellency the President so aptly described recently as electoral rascality. This contrast is the very kernel of the time-tested nexus between democracy and development.”
According to the Finance Minister, GECOM along with other constitutional agencies such as the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC), the Public Procurement Commission (PPC), the Public/Police Service Commission and the Judicial Service Commission, the judiciary and the Audit Office, will receive a total allocation of $18.9 billion for this year.

A perusal of the 2025 budget estimates meanwhile shows that $237.8 million in capital sums have been allocated for GECOM… a sizeable increase of 137.8 per cent, compared to the $100 million that was allocated in 2024. It further states that the funding is for “building, vehicle, furniture, equipment, and payment of retention.”

Electoral impasse
With the last elections held in 2020, the next General and Regional Elections are constitutionally due in 2025, with November 2025 potentially being identified, though not confirmed, as the month when it will likely be held.
Already, the GECOM Secretariat, though it has not been mandated by the seven-member Elections Commission to prepare for the polls, has taken it upon itself to start preparations to ensure it is in a state of readiness.
If held in November, the elections would come over five years after the March 2, 2020 General and Regional elections. After a nearly smooth polling day, Guyana was embroiled in a prolonged electoral impasse for five months, following blatant attempts by senior GECOM officials and the then People’s National Congress (PNC)-led A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Government, which refused to concede defeat and demit office.
As the electoral impasse continued months after the March 2020 polls, the international community and the ABCE diplomats had put mounting pressure on the APNU/AFC to concede defeat, warning of Guyana facing isolation and consequences.
In fact, the United States (US) had gone ahead to impose visa sanctions against several Government and electoral officials, and their immediate family members, for their role in undermining democracy in Guyana.
The UK, Canada as well as the EU had also indicated that they were also considering following suit. The heightened pressure from the West led to the APNU/AFC eventually conceding and allowed the Dr Irfaan Ali-led administration to finally take office on August 2, 2020.
Following those events, several senior GECOM officials and political activists have been charged and placed before the courts on a series of electoral fraud charges including misconduct while holding public office, presenting falsified documentation, and planning to manipulate Guyana’s voters by presenting an inaccurate vote total.
Those charged include former Chief Elections Officer, Keith Lowenfield; his former Deputy CEO, Roxanne Myers; former Region Four Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo, and GECOM employees Sheffern February, Enrique Livan, Denise Babb-Cummings, and Michelle Miller.
Former People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) Chairperson Volda Lawrence and PNCR activist Carol Smith-Joseph, are also before the court on election fraud related charges.
However, years after those charges were instituted in 2021, these cases continue to languish in the Magistrates’ Court, with the case expected to start over next month.