Gecom announces readiness for Local Govt elections

GECOM Chairman Dr Steve Surujbally and Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield

By Edward Layne

The Guyana Elections Commission (Gecom) has announced its preparedness for the holding of the long overdue Local Government Elections (LGE) before May of next year, confirming earlier reports by Minister of Governance Raphael Trotman.

Trotman last week had told Guyana Times the elections, last held in 1994, was likely to be held in March next year, a date which Gecom Chairman Dr Steve Surujbally said was “not unreasonable.”

The Elections body was previously a little adamant about its ability to hold the elections because of some parliamentary hiccups. However, in a release to the media on Friday, the Commission declared it was in full election mode.

“This change in gear was caused by the issuance of several related Orders by the Minister of Communities, including Order No 23 of 2015 on Friday 23 October 2015 which identifies nine Towns and 62 NDCs where Local Government Elections will be held. This Order allows the Elections Commission to extract the voters list for the identified areas for Local Government Elections from the current National Register of Registrants (NRR)”, Gecom said in the statement.

It said the fully constituted Elections Commission with all members present, sitting at its statutory Meeting last September, unanimously decided that the qualifying date to be used for the extraction of the voters’ lists will be 29 February 2016.

“As a consequence of the above, and given the current work plan of the Gecom Secretariat, Local Government Elections can be held no earlier than Monday 14 March 2016 and no later than 29 May 2016. The appointment of the specific date within this period as “Election Day” is still to be made by another Ministerial Order”.

Following the extraction of the Preliminary Lists of Voters for all the Local Government Areas, eligible voters are invited to fully use the Claims & Objections period to scrutinise, sanitise and update these lists.

The Commission said during the Claims and Objections period, which will commence on November 9, persons who will be 18 years and over as at 29 February 2016 will be allowed to make claims to have their registration recorded at the address in the constituency in which they live, either as new registrants or by transfer.

In addition, Gecom noted, those persons will be allowed to make objections to entries in the list on which their names appear which they know do not represent persons who actually live in their respective constituencies.

Other transactions such as corrections to the recorded particulars of eligible voters and change of name, supported by the appropriate source documents, will also be permitted during this period.

To facilitate this C&O exercise a total of 153 offices will be established across all the Local Government areas identified for Local Government Elections. Lists will be posted in each electoral division in these areas in accordance with the relevant constituencies.

The offices will be opened for business Monday thru Friday from 15:30h to 19:00h and 10:00h to 14:00h on Saturdays and Sundays during the Claims and Objections period.

Gecom urges all eligible voters to make full use of this period to ensure a credible electoral roll is produced.

Eligible voters should look out for frequent Gecom publications in the print, electronic and social media in addition to fliers, posters and banners providing greater detail and updated information as the time approaches.

Speaking to Guyana Times last week, Gecom Chairman Dr Surujbally said the Commission had already commenced ground work in preparation for the elections, and March was one of the months which came up for consideration during deliberations with the Communities Minister.