Work plan for holding LGE still a work in progress

…GECOM Chair to make decision on APNU/AFC ‘demands’ next week

The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) statutory meeting on Tuesday saw a number of things discussed and a decision will be made by next week on the letter sent to GECOM seeking an investigation into a public disclosure of alleged voter impersonation at the 2020 General and Regional Elections.

The letter in question was sent to GECOM last week by Carol Joseph, A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change’s (APNU/AFC) Chief Scrutineer. In the letter, the Opposition makes a number of demands when it comes to the probe into voter fraud at the last election.
They have demanded that all information on voter impersonation be forwarded to the Police and the General Registration Officer. Additionally, they demanded that any verified reports of voter impersonation be publicly released.

APNU/AFC had also called for GECOM to do an internal probe into the matter, which they claim the electoral body had discontinued in 2020, as well as take steps to prevent any potential voter impersonation in the future.
GECOM Commissioner Sase Gunraj related to this publication on Tuesday that the letter was discussed during the commission’s statutory meeting and that GECOM Chair, Retired Justice Claudette Singh, will make a decision on it by next week.

While Joseph is requesting that GECOM investigate the alleged cases of voter impersonation, Gunraj pointed out that “A decision was already made that GECOM can’t investigate.”
Attorney General Anil Nandlall has already asked the Police to investigate the documents of alleged voter fraud, which APNU had provided to GECOM after the March 2020 General and Regional Elections.
At a recent statutory meeting, GECOM had voted to release these very documents, which had been requested by Nandlall to investigate Opposition’s claims of rigging at the 2020 elections, notwithstanding efforts by the Opposition-nominated Commissioners to block this.
In a previous edition of his programme “Issues in the News”, Nandlall had pointed out that back in 2020, when APNU/AFC first made its erroneous claims, the PPP/C did investigations of its own. During its investigations, the PPP/C was able to find many of the persons that APNU/AFC claimed were out of the jurisdiction or dead.
In fact, at the time many of these persons had come forward to protest against and dispute APNU/AFC’s claims. This publication published several such persons, who had been accused by the then ruling party of being either dead or out of the jurisdiction, when their vote was recorded.
During last week’s press conference, however, Opposition MP and shadow Attorney General Roysdale Forde had admitted that some of the information the party had submitted to GECOM, is indeed inaccurate. However, he had urged that all the information be verified.
In October 2020, Joseph made her first court appearance for several charges in relation to electoral fraud following the March 2, 2020 elections.
She was arraigned on one count of forgery and two counts of conspiracy to defraud at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts and was placed on $30,000 bail for each charge.

LGE workplan
Meanwhile, Gunraj also explained on Tuesday that the workplan for the holding of Local Government Elections (LGE) is still a work in progress. GECOM has been working on holding Local Government Elections (LGE) by this year end. However, there is a workplan being examined by the Commission, that proposes holding it early next year.
LGE, which are usually due every two years, was last held in 2018. At the last LGE in November 2018, the then People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Opposition had secured 52 of the 80 Local Authority Areas (LAAs). This followed the holding of the LGE in 2016, during which the PPP/C also claimed the majority of the LAAs. (G3)