PPP Commissioners accuse GECOM Chairman of dodging meetings

– GECOM says Commissioners were unavailable
– as local, diplomatic observes accredited for LGE

Opposition Commissioners of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) have gone public with concerns about transparency at the entity, with days to go before November 12; they claim their efforts to have statutory meetings have been thwarted.
At a press conference on Friday, Commissioner Bibi Shadick explained that GECOM ought to have had a statutory meeting on Tuesday. This meeting was however not held as Tuesday was a holiday.
And despite an understanding in the past that meetings which fell on holidays would roll over to the next day, the Commissioners claimed this was not followed. This has caused Commissioner Robeson Benn to declare a lack of confidence in GECOM’s preparations. He explained that concerns his party had about the

Disciplined Services’ voting and other critical matters could not be addressed.
“It should not be that you have an Elections Commission, in election mode and the Commission could not be called to meet on the statutory day or the day after or at any time to ventilate issues which may be brought to the Commission. It undermines the transparency of the process and is probably a bad harbinger of things to come.”
“We had bad experiences of the CEO (Keith Lowenfield) not being available and it affected issues that resulted in a court case… if we are updated and satisfied, that speaks to a transparent process and willingness to give the public and stakeholders confidence in the process. If we can’t meet, there is an issue with transparency,” he said, adding that there is still time for a meeting.
Benn also questioned whether the lack of meetings was because of a reluctance to answer questions on important issues. He noted that there are logistical and other issues when it comes to the November 2 Disciplined Services voting, which should have been ironed out the day before.
Meanwhile, fellow Commissioner Sase Gunraj noted that stakeholders have had to write GECOM to complain about the process, such as personnel placed at certain positions. He said these and other issues are not being brought to the

Commission’s attention.
When asked about local, regional and international observers, Shadick and Gunraj explained that they were in the dark. It was noted that whether observer groups have been accredited is a mystery to the Commissioners. According to Shadick, this is one of the issues that would have been raised.

GECOM
In a brief interview with Guyana Times on Friday, GECOM’s Public Relations Officer, Yolanda Warde was asked about the concerns of the Commissioners. She acknowledged that GECOM Chairman James Patterson received a letter from the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Commissioners requesting a statutory meeting.
“Some of the other Commissioners were unavailable, because of the critical operations that are ongoing in the field, in relation to preparation for the election and so they were visiting a number of those areas.”
“He also indicated that he’s not aware of the critical issues that need to be discussed and therefore, unless he would have received that kind of specificity, the operations at this particular juncture that is happening in preparation for Monday takes precedence,” Warde explained.
She also confirmed that the observers previously approved by the Commission have been accredited. This includes the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU), the Private Sector Commission (PSC), as well as the Canadian High Commission and the United States embassy.
The last time Local Government Elections were held in 2016, the US embassy and the British and Canadian High Commissions had fielded observer teams. With elections expected to go down on November 12, the deadline for local observers to apply was October 11.
The PPP had previously indicated that over 3000 candidates have been put forward by the party to contest local elections in all 80 Local Authority Areas (LAAs). The other parties will be contesting on a smaller scale.
A Partnership for National Unity will be contesting elections in 76 of the 80 LAAs. The Alliance For Change plans to contest only 38 LAAs at the upcoming LGE scheduled for November 12.
The Disciplined Services voted last Friday, where one of the issues raised was the names of officers missing from the lists.