Gov’t should not bow to pressure engineered by lies

Sep 29, 2019 Eye on Guyana with Lincoln Lewis, Features / Columnists

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President David Granger in his Address to the Nation last Wednesday evening said, “I am pleased to announce that… the earliest possible date for the holding of General and Regional Elections will be on Monday, 2nd March 2020…. the Government of Guyana must, as a consequence, return to the National Assembly to request an extension” to hold the election.

It came as a surprise last Friday to read the President saying, “If the opposition doesn’t go to Parliament, then we will abide by what I said last night: elections will be held on the 2nd of March. That is as definitive as I can get..,” after the night before specifically mentioning about the needed two-thirds majority vote in the National Assembly in order to hold the election.
It is unclear what prompted this change, but it is rather suspected that in light of pressure and moving away from script, the President could have said what was reported. This is cause for concern not only for the inconsistency, but mainly for the potential breach of Article 106(7) stipulating that “Notwithstanding its defeat, the Government shall remain in office and shall hold an election within three months, or such longer period as the National Assembly shall by resolution supported by not less than two-thirds of the votes of all the elected members of the National Assembly determine, and shall resign after the President takes the oath of office following the election.”
This is no ordinary election, and therefore the announcement of a date and reason for declaring so is not the same as when a position of normalcy exists. We are reminded that the current election is not called under the normal condition, which is the five-year expired period, but rather, out of a successful no-confidence motion, hence the conditionalities are not the same.
Under the normal five-year period, GECOM would have had its plan of work ready to meet the constitutionally-stipulated timeframe. That GECOM has advised two weeks ago as to its readiness to conduct a credible election by the “end of February 2020”, to have an election conducted before its stated readiness could compromise the process and would raise issues about credibility.
Further, to demand immediately naming the date for election ignores Article 61 which stipulates “An election of members of the National Assembly under Article 60 (2) shall be held on such day within three months after every dissolution of Parliament as the President shall allow by proclamation:”
The President is correct in saying, “The extension of a period beyond three months for the holding of an election is related to the Elections Commission’s readiness to hold the elections,” given the body advised of its readiness in five months (i.e. end of February 2020). This notwithstanding, the three months period for which an election could have been held after a successful no-confidence vote expired in March this year, necessitating the activation of the proviso “or such longer period,” requiring the enactment of a two-thirds majority vote in the National Assembly.
Those demanding a proclamation to dissolve parliament now and name a date for election either don’t care or are unaware that GECOM’s timeline for conducting a credible will not be satisfied. To seek to conduct an election outside of GECOM’s readiness and respect for the constitution is evidence of how desperate some are, and prepared to violate the constitution to satisfy their own needs.
What we are also seeing to further an agenda to realise election outside of the constitutional process, the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) is being brought into disrepute on false claims. It is being bandied around that the CCJ ruled election must be held by September 18th and the three months period countdown to hold an election began with its ruling on June 18th (or July 12th consequential order as some are now saying) yet none who have and continue to make these statements, have produced, nor can they produce, any hard source evidence to the effect.
I remain disappointed by those in the international community and various levels of leadership in this country, including sections of the religious community, not following our Constitution and CCJ ruling, relying instead on others. What is evident is a lack of independent research and the skewed information coming out to the public, suggests one source of information is fueling this distortion. The veracity of what is being said should be verified from the original sources.
Government needs not bow to pressure that is misguided and manipulative.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper)

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