For GECOM’s Legitimacy

Nov 25, 2012 Features / Columnists, Ravi Dev

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Last Saturday, I participated in a TV panel discussion on the necessity for reconstituting the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC). As when I’d first entered parliament back in 2001, I was amazed at the bonhomie displayed by politicians from across the aisles – when they’re out of the chamber. Rupert Roopnaraine from APNU and Gail Teixeira of the PPP exchanged the easy banter that comes from sharing decades of struggle. Odinga Lumumba was as he always is: gruff, direct and ready with an ironic quip.
On the subject at hand, there was complete unanimity on the need for a properly constituted and full ERC back in the saddle. Whatever might have been the objections in the past by the Opposition, time had made them moot. Juan Edghill, the PNC’s bête noir, was not on the horizon for selection, whether as chairman or a commissioner. Most pertinently, the Committee of Appointments (CoA) was now under Opposition control.
The CoA will canvass its list of 160+ organisations deemed to represent ‘civil society’ to identify the list of nominees of the seven constitutionally empowered to be the ERC’s Commissioners. The ‘functions’ of the ERC, laid out in twenty-four sections, are so extensive that the organisation can pretty much take almost every approach devised in the last few decades to ‘address’ the ethnic problematic.
So what do we do in the meantime about all the discriminatory practices and their consequences we hear about –especially but not exclusively from Opposition quarters?
Last week the youth arms of APNU and the PNC called for the GECOM Chairman Dr. Steve Surujbally and Chief Election Officer Gocool Boodoo, to be replaced. One would remember their protests in front of the homes of the two men as well as in front of their Offices, after the November elections. They claimed then that Surujbally and Boodoo were favouring the PPP in all sorts of ways and demanded their heads.
APNU had also been vehement in its call for the removal of Surujbally and Boodoo; accusing them of incompetence in the handling of the polls. But as with everything political in Guyana, there is inevitably a nexus with ethnicity. While APNU and its various arms have taken care not to openly accuse Surujbally/ Boodoo of ethnic favouritism, that subtext was always present. For instance, along with their calls for the removal of the two men, the YCT had called for the boycott of businesses ‘supporting the PPP”. With two notable exceptions, all the businesses were owned by Indian Guyanese: the YCT insisted their call was ‘political’ and not ‘racial’.
But that, of course, is the dilemma of Guyana:  how do we separate the two so that our actions are not seen as racist and discriminatory. And that brings us to the renewed calls by the GYSM and YCT which obviously still see the two men as tainted: whether racially or politically, take your pick. Almost immediately after the Opposition youth groups’ call, the Indian Arrival Committee (IAC) did take their pick: they pointed out that the two targeted men are Indian Guyanese and their removal from an organisation that was ‘98% African Guyanese” was tantamount to ethnic cleansing.
If their figures are true – and GECOM has not contested them to date – then we’ll have a major crisis of credibility in this key institution in the near future. From developments in parliament over the last year, culminating in the latest snafu over Minister Rohee, it is clear that elections are in the air: sooner rather than later. While Guyanese may differ on the salience of ethnicity in our daily lives, no one questions its overweening rise around elections.
The inexorably changing demographics in Guyana have delivered us into a situation where there is no longer any built-in ethnic majorities. The major groups in Guyana now approach each other in size. Elections can go either way and as such the machinery that will give credence and legitimacy to the counting of votes is even more critical. Our history of electoral rigging between 1968 and 1985 has left most Guyanese quite skittish in this regard.
We cannot pretend that the ethnic composition of GECOM is of no consequence – as we routinely do about the disciplined forces and the public services. Our private concerns will inevitably spill over into our public protests: unfortunately these invariably get out of hand and the society splinters further. We are not sure exactly when the ERC will be reconstituted. We hope that it will be soon and they will take cognisance of the potential powder keg that the present composition of GECOM presents.
Among its constitutionally defined functions, Art 212(D) (k) allows the ERC to monitor all legislation (such as that establishing GECOM) ‘having implications for ethnic relations…and…to prepare and submit proposals for revision of such legislation…” Their recommendation would need a two-thirds majority in the House. We hope that all parties will go ahead with the comprehensive reform of GECOM they know is vital for its legitimacy.

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