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No Local Government Elections in 2013 – GECOM
Local Government Elections cannot be held this year even if the four Local Government Bills are passed in the National Assembly right now, something the joint Opposition Parties have been pressing for.
Vishnu Persaud
According to Vishnu Persaud, Public Relations Officer of Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), the body will require time to adequately prepare to undertake such a task.
He explained that GECOM could only hold elections once the Minister of Local Government and Regional Development makes the announcement and the Secretariat would require at least six months from the announcement date before it could actually hold elections.
Persaud also pointed out that there are four Local Government Bills that have to be passed by the National Assembly and assented to by the President before the elections could be held. As such, with five months remaining for the completion of 2013, Guyana will not have Local Government Elections.
Since 1994, Guyana has not convened Local Government Elections and many local bodies have weakened. Within recent years, numerous Neighbourhood Democratic Councils have been disbanded and Interim Management Committees have been installed.
On July 18, the opening session of a critical sitting of the National Assembly was characterized by an unusual silence, as Government refused to participate after the Opposition successfully brought the four Local Government Bills to the top of the agenda.
The Alliance For Change (AFC) said moving these Bills to the top were to ascertain if Government was serious about holding Local Government Elections by year-end or early next year. Suspicions that Government did not want elections were vindicated with Government’s silence, the AFC said subsequently.
According to AFC’s Parliamentarian Cathy Hughes, the party’s major priority is the holding of Local Government Elections for the need of developing towns and communities across Guyana. She made reference to the sour relationship between Government and the Georgetown Mayor and City Council.
The AFC has confidence in GECOM to host Local Government Elections in its current form, even though the party had some “encounters” with the body during the 2006 and 2011 National Elections.
“There are lots of things GECOM has done that were up to good standards. We were not happy with the way they handled our seat in 2006 that we never received. And, of course we all know about the most recent elections and the miscount. We said very publicly what our concerns are… We feel confidently that GECOM is capable of holding Local Government Elections,” she said.
Recently, one of GECOM’s six Commissioners, Vincent Alexander exposed that the Chief Elections Officer (at the time) may not have made a mistake in calculating the wrong Elections result in 2011, a situation that was immediately corrected.
Moreover, in 2006 a similar “mistake” was brought to GECOM’s and the Commissioners’ attention at a time when it could have been corrected.
According to Hughes, the AFC does not have its own representation on GECOM and this should not be. “There shouldn’t be one representative that covers the Opposition…we, in fact, have seven seats in those 65 seats in Parliament,” she added.
According to Persaud, the selection of Commissioners is not a task of GECOM but Members of Parliament are required to provide nominees and the President appoints the Commissioners.
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