There is an urgent need to reconstruct GECOM

May 26, 2015 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
Looking past the euphoria surrounding the validity of the elections results, there were many apprehensions about the time taken for the declaration – from May 11 – five days. Admittedly the process had to cover far-flung geographical areas, and presumably this may be one reason for the extended delay. It however does not contribute to the defectiveness of the tabulation process, which must have embarrassed GECOM as a whole and the Chief Election Officer in particular, unassisted as he apparently was by the appointed Deputy who, from all video projections, was conspicuous by his absence at work.
There can be little argument that in spite of the acclaimed transparency and fairness of the manual exercise, Guyana has probably the most outdated voting system in the world, certainly in Latin America. This in fact was publicly admitted to the media when reference was made to the (successful) experiment with a technological variant used for student elections at the University of Guyana earlier.
Exposure to this latest experiment should have convinced the most reluctant of observers that it is indeed time to upgrade the election process. It should also convince them of the urgent need to reconstruct GECOM to be a more effective organisation that would be managed by professional decision-makers.
At this juncture the National Estimates makes it clear that there are two components of GECOM – Administration and Commission. Both components need to be reconfigured consistent with more effective models in the Caribbean and around the rest of the Commonwealth.
For one, since the 2006 Elections the Carter Centre Observer team had recommended a change from the representation model which now obtains to one that would reflect a substantive degree of professionalism. In this regard it is interesting to note that the current Constitution advises that a judge should be chairman of the Commission – a provision that has been honoured in the breach from the inception.
Incidentally another blatant breach of the Constitution obtains in GECOM being reduced from its legitimate Constitutional status which requires it to report direct to the National Assembly rather than to the Office of the President as it has been made to do for the past several years – a situation which deprives it of what little autonomy it should exercise.
The new administration would be expected to correct this default as expeditiously as possible. Immediately thereafter arrangements should be made to undertake a full scale reorganisation of GECOM taking into account not only the Carter Centre Observers’ Report of 2006, but all other Observer Teams’ Reports – of the 2015 Elections, and of course those of 2011. Further, the least that can be done immediately in the face of expressed reservations in some quarters, is to require GECOM to release copies of these 2015 Reports for public consumption, and of course feedback and appropriate action.
E. B. John

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