GECOM Chairman, Dr Steve, Surujbally

… PPP’s concerns rebuffed

Coming fresh off of the May 2015 General and Regional Election, Guyana is slated to host Local Government Elections in less than five months and Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Dr Steve Surujbally has stated that there will be no major reforms to the electoral process.

Following the May 11 Election, they were several recommendations made to GECOM and the Government of Guyana for reforms to be made in order to make the electoral process more efficient and transparent.

Only recently, the Opposition People’s Progressive Party (PPP) had called for electoral reforms to be placed on the front burner. The reforms include a fresh voters list, improved bio-metrics and electronic voting, among others.

However, speaking with Guyana Times on Wednesday, Dr Surujbally said that there will be no major reforms heading into the local government polls. He explained that in order for these reforms to be executed, they would have to be tabled in Parliament and receive the House’s approval before being implemented.

Nevertheless, the GECOM Chairman disclosed that the Commission is looking at making internal changes to better execute their functions at the March 18, 2016 Local Government Elections. “Internally, we would have been improving on our system,” he said.

According to Dr Surujbally, the elections body recently held a retreat during which certain recommendations were made. However, he noted that the findings from this retreat are yet to be compiled.

“There were ideas that came up there that we could implement but I wouldn’t get into that now,” he stated.

Moreover, the head of the elections body pointed out that there are certain changes that will have to be made, such as the ‘one day verification’ process after registration, which the Opposition had said could result in fraud.

“I think the consensus of opinion would be not do it the same day but the other day, I think that was a reasonable proposition or even two days so that is not unreasonable. There are certain areas of course, where there must be done on the same day,” he said.

Dr Surujbally outlined that GECOM sees the PPP’s intervention and contributions as an assistant that is auxiliary to the electoral process.

“They (PPP) can quarrel and state in very vicious terms sometimes, their feelings but they must do what they have to do but we too must do what we have to do. When something is valid, we don’t see them as antagonist, we see them as partners in an auxiliary process,” the Chairman noted, while adding that this goes for all political parties.

The PPP, which lost the election by close to 5000 votes, remained steadfast to its position that the 2015 General and Regional Election was severely flawed, stating that in the past 23 years, there has been “absolutely no reforms” at GECOM to cater for institutional strengthening through more transparent and impartial practices.

Other reforms proposed by the Opposition include bringing the GECOM Secretariat under the purview of the Commission to enable the Commission to give the Secretariat general orders and directions; recruitment of GECOM’s key election officials such as Returning Officers, Presiding Officers and Poll Clerks, through improved transparent and impartial processes; review the process that allows for voting by the Disciplined Services; amend the relevant sections of the Representation of the People Act to allow for the enactment of appropriate legislation to facilitate implementation of agreed reforms, and the selection of a new Chairman of GECOM.

In a previous interview with <<<Guyana Times>>>, former President and Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo, had stated that GECOM failed the country because of its inability to deliver free, fair and transparent elections this year. He said that the elections body has a lot of burning questions to answer following what he described as the “fraudulent and rigged May 11 General and Regional Elections”, which saw the A Partnership for National Unity and Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) coalition forming the new Government with a one-seat majority. They ousted the PPP/Civic into the Opposition benches after 23 years in office.

The Opposition had filed a petition at the High Court challenging the outcome and according to the Opposition Leader, they are expecting to get answers outlined in the legal action, which details the many deficiencies associated with those elections and his Party’s view that the results of the election do not reflect the will of the people.

Jagdeo said that the petition will give Guyanese insight as to the inner workings of all those bodies within the GECOM infrastructure that were established to safeguard a free and fair election process, but were inefficient, compromised and politically skewed.

That aside, Jagdeo maintained that the 2015 election experience has left a sour taste in the mouths of PPP supporters and leaders because of the manner in which the election was conducted by officials at GECOM. The Opposition Leader said the PPP arrived at a plan of action to remedy some of the deficiencies encountered during the last election.