GECOM’s job is not to investigate dual citizens

Feb 05, 2020 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

In reference to your several news reports and commentaries on dual citizenship (KN varied dates), it is not GECOM’s remit to check the nationality of candidates seeking public office. The candidates make a declaration that they are eligible for office and that they have not sworn loyalty to another state. That is enough, along with back up signatures, to run for office. If there are issues with the candidates, that has to be addressed through election petitions. GECOM’s task is to manage the elections and give the country a free and fair election and one that is free of intimidation and violence. So far, according to voters interviewed, GECOM has not lived up to this expectation.
Also, GECOM cannot investigate and make decisions on eligibility of candidates to run for office based on media reports. And if GECOM is checking on dual nationality of candidates, then it must do so for all of them (numbering a thousand). It cannot pick and choose a few candidates and send letters to them to query dual nationality status or whether their names should remain in the ballot. If through the election petition, it is determined that candidates are ineligible to hold office, then they will be removed from (or replaced in) parliament as happened almost a year ago following the no confidence vote.
Furthermore, it seems unfair that each set of three politicized election commissioners, representing the two larger parties, is determining which minor party leader or candidate can run for office. The major parties have been trying to knock off the minor parties from the ballot; they are gloating in knocking off candidates from lists. Failing an election petition, the decision on eligibility of candidates for public office should fall exclusively within the jurisdiction of the ‘politically unaligned’ Chair, Madame Justice (Ret’d) Claudette Singh.

Yours truly,
Vishnu Bisram

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