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ERC trains elections campaign Monitors

Mar 15, 2011 News

With the imminent elections campaign, the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) concluded a two-day training workshop on Saturday for part-time Media and Elections Campaign Monitors.
These monitors will be deployed to political meetings/campaigns/rallies countrywide. This is to dissuade the use of any language or action aimed at inciting or exciting racial hostility or ill-will which can result in ethnic conflict.
The process of identifying monitors entailed public advertising in all four daily newspapers.
The applicants were solicited from various regions and eventually short-listed, invited to attend training sessions, underwent an evaluation then interviewed before appointment.
According to the ERC, the training and deployment of the monitors is also aimed at ensuring that the environment before, during and after the Elections is free from fear and intimidation.
The ERC added that the participants were informed of the Constitutional Mandate of the ERC specially examining the Constitution (Amendment) (No.2) Act 2000, the Representation of the People (Amendment) Act No. 1 of 2001 and the Racial Hostility (Amendment) Act No. 9 of 2002.
The two-day training workshop which was held at the Georgetown Club, Camp Street Georgetown, catered for the training of some 62 monitors from Regions One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Nine and Ten.
During the opening ceremony on March 11, last, ERC Chairman Bishop Juan Edghill said such training was never before done on the magnitude at which the ERC is doing it.
The ERC Chairman referred the participants to the Representation of the People (Amendment) Act and the Racial Hostility (Amendment) Act explaining that a politician or anyone who preaches race hate should not and will not be allowed to serve in any elected office in Guyana and that is the role of the Ethnic Relations Commission.
Cautioning monitors to be professional in their duties, Bishop Edghill outlined ten points to which monitors should adhere.
These included not providing any political party, the media or any person, apart from the Head of the ERC Media Monitoring Unit, with copies of the tape made of any political meeting or with the original tape, whether in whole or part.
Monitors should not be political activists working in the interest of any political party; should not be working for or on behalf of any political party in their mobilisation or hold any office in any political party; cannot have their names appear on the list of candidates of any political party; and are not peacemakers.
They are not to become involved in any incident at any political meeting or campaign.
Monitors were also cautioned that should there be an incident leading to a trial either by the ERC or any court with jurisdiction to act in Guyana, monitors must be prepared to give sworn testimony and as such recordings of meetings or rallies must not be altered or tampered with in any manner.
Monitors will not be authorised to speak on behalf of the ERC.
Other areas covered during the training include the monitoring process, understanding the use of language in the political context and creating the settings for political meetings.

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