Govt writes EU to field election observers ahead of 2025 elections – Jagdeo

…renews commitment to strengthen campaign financing laws

Guyana is gearing up for General and Regional Elections in 2025, and Government has already written the European Union (EU) to field an Election Observer Mission (EOM) to monitor the local polls.
Earlier this month, Head of the EU Delegation to Guyana, Ambassador René Van Nes, told reporters that the Guyana Government has requested the EU EOM to return for next year’s elections, slated to be held in November 2025.
“The Government has now indicated its very keen interest to have another EU Election Observation Mission for the General Elections of 2025… The EU will look favourably at that expression of interest as soon as we have the paperwork to look at that,” the Ambassador has said.
Governments are customarily required to write international bodies to invite them to observe national elections.

During a press conference on Thursday, General Secretary of the ruling People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, said Government wants to have a wide presence of the international community here.
“In an engagement with the European Union, we were told that there are a large number of countries that are requesting missions to observe their elections, and they [the EU] have a long planning cycle; so, if we’re interested, we should send an early invitation. I think that has been done, because we want as many international observers in Guyana as possible,” he disclosed.
The international community, including the EU, had played a crucial role in ensuring that democracy prevailed following the historic March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections, which saw Guyana being in a political deadlock for five months as a result of blatant attempts to steal the elections by some officials of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) with the aim of keeping the then A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance for Change (APNU/AFC) regime in power.

Large observer mission
At the 2020 General and Regional Elections, the EU Election Observer Mission was the largest foreign group here, having deployed 55 observers to monitor the opening, polling, counting and tabulation processes in all 10 regions. In its final report, the Mission found that while voting and counting were well managed all over the country, along with the tabulation of results in nine of Guyana’s 10 regions, the tabulation process was abruptly stalled in Region Four – the country’s largest and decisive voting district.

The EU EOM said, “…the integrity of the entire electoral process was seriously compromised by the non-transparent and non-credible tabulation of results in the largest and decisive Region 4 by senior GECOM officials acting in blatant violation of the law and High Court orders issued in this regard.”
At the centre of those allegations are former Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield and embattled Region Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo, who blatantly inflated figures in favour of the APNU/AFC. Both Lowenfield and Mingo, along with other GECOM staff and senior APNU/AFC members, have since been charged with a slew of electoral fraud charges that are before the local courts.
Nevertheless, in its final report on the March 2020 elections, the EU Observer Mission had made some 26 recommendations on diverse aspects of the elections, including the legal framework, election administration, the campaign and campaign financing, the media and social media, and electoral dispute resolution – all aimed at improving future electoral processes in Guyana. Of those recommendations, eight had been identified as priority, which the EU says could have the most positive impact on the elections, if implemented.
Last year, the EU deployed an Election Follow-up Mission (EFM) to assess Guyana’s progress towards electoral reform. In May 2023, the EFM disclosed that two of the EU’s priority recommendations were implemented in full by the Guyana Government through amendments to the Representation of People (Amendment) Act and the National Registration (Amendment) Act that were made in 2022.

Campaign financing
However, even as the Government was lauded for those efforts, the Follow-up Mission had also highlighted some of the areas where they believe urgent action is needed, including campaign financing – something which the PPP/C had promised to address in its 2020 Manifesto.
On Thursday, Jagdeo reiterated that campaign financing legislation is still a priority for the ruling administration.
“Campaign Finance is something this is in our manifesto…so we have to strengthen provisions about campaign financing,” the PPP General Secretary has said.
In addition to the EU, several other international bodies have, over the years, called for Guyana to implement campaign financing laws. Only last year, this was one of the recommendations that were made by the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the March 2020 General and Regional Elections.
In its final report handed over to Government in April 2023, the CoI panel pointed to the absence of legislation applicable to campaign financing in Guyana.
“There is a lack of transparency and accountability regarding political parties and campaign financing. Political parties have historically raised funds without any limitations regarding the source or amount of donation, and with very little obligation to disclose election expenses. There is a strong need for such legislation, as there is a perception that persons and/ or corporations who give large donations stand to gain political favours,” the report detailed.
That inquiry was established by President Dr Irfaan Ali to look into the events leading up to, during, and after the March 2020 elections, and make recommendations to prevent any recurrence. (G8)