Chief Elections Officer says…Poll preparations would take 148 days

Feb 09, 2019 News

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It would take the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) 148 days to make adequate preparations for the conduct of General and Regional Elections. However, Chief Elections Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield says that the commencement of such preparations will have to wait until the Commission, headed by Chairman James Patterson, instructs him to do so.
Present yesterday at a GECOM press conference when Lowenfield made this assertion were Chairman Patterson, Public Relations Officer, Yolanda Ward, and Deputy Chief Elections Officer, Roxanne Meyers.
Lowenfield said that he, as well as the members of the Commission, is considering all options, so that he could address issues in a way that fairly considers the concerns of all stakeholders. He explained that there is a protocol that would have to be adhered to, in order for GECOM to get ready for free and fair elections.
Lowenfield’s Deputy, Roxanne Meyers, told members of the media that, if elections were to be scheduled for March 19, Nomination Day would have had to have occurred by the end of January, effectively ruling out any possibility of an election occurring before the 90-day deadline.
Furthermore, Lowenfield said that the law states that, “nomination should be held not less than 32 days before elections”. He said that it would take 18 days after final approval of the nominations, provided that there are no hiccups in that process, for the foreign service provider to produce and transport the ballots and other election materials of the parties who would have successfully passed the nomination process. Those ballots would need to be returned, at best, 21 days before Election day, for GECOM to facilitate voting of non-resident Guyanese working in all Guyana’s High Commissions, Embassies and Consulates, he said.

This timeline, however, would be set on the assumption that the commission is already fully prepared for General and Regional Elections, which it is not. GECOM would still have to consider training. Although training could occur concurrently with the nomination day and acquisition of materials process, the training alone would take 105 days.
“For us to conduct elections, it has to be staffed. At the moment, if elections are to be held, we’d have an estimation of 2,300 polling stations. Even if I utilize 20 training teams at schools across Guyana, [this] would see us taking a minimum of 7-9 weeks, to ensure we train in all these regions.”
He said that Region 3 has 327 polling stations. Minimally, that region would require 1,035 Election-day staff. If 20 teams train on one weekend with an adequate turnout of participants, that exercise would take GECOM one weekend, Lowenfield explained. In this regard, he also disaggregated the quantities of polling stations and Election-day staff required for those polling stations, in all ten administrative regions, laying out the timeline that would amount to 7-9 weeks.
“I cannot run an election in part of Guyana. The election is pan-Guyana, Guyana Elections. The staff needs to train. One shudders to think that there’s going to be a polling station without an attending Presiding Officer or Assistant Presiding Officer. Then, someone could very well say, ‘Let’s close the elections down, because GECOM is not ready’.”
This 105-day training timeline, he said, doesn’t yet consider that the CEO must make a ‘second pass’ to all regions to ensure that all polling stations are adequately staffed.
“If, when I got to Region 6, I do not have the required amount of staff, I will have to pass again, or with any region, for that matter, to make a second move to ensure the required complement of staff are in location. “
He rebuked suggestions that all the staff could be trained within a month, since it would require taking teachers out of school, who make up the bulk of the trainers. In this case, he said, training could occur every day and it still would not be enough to staff all polling stations. The CEO also noted that it’s not enough for the secretariat to reuse the Local Government Elections-trained staff; that the staff must be retrained for General and Regional Elections.
If the secretariat rushed the process, he said, many undesirable situations could be created for the Commission, which would call the freeness and fairness of the election into question.
When the CEO gave the July timeline as the earliest possible date for Regional Elections on February 1 last, Meyers noted, he made it on the presumption that the secretariat would be given an immediate directive to kick into operation mode, counting five months from February to July. She said that, as time passes, that timeline will shift. Hence, as of today, that timeline would be July 9, 2019.
Asked what it would take for the Commission to effect a vote on whether the GECOM secretariat should kick into preparation mode, GECOM Chairman Patterson declined to answer, saying that the Chairman of the Commission does not speak for the Commission.

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