GECOM cannot escape culpability for misconduct in the elections

Mar 20, 2020 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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I refuse to accept that our election laws are so backward that they would allow for a small group of miscreants to overturn the collective will of the people. I refuse to accept also that the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) is so impotent that it has no power to amend or overturn an obviously flawed declaration.
I agree with a front-page comment made last week by Kaieteur News, that the Representation of the People Act must be interpreted purposively. I also support the assertion by a learned member of the legal fraternity that, in relation to elections, laws must be interpreted liberally, so as to give greater effect to enfranchisement (in the case of registration) and to ensuring the elective will of the people (in relation to matters which have a bearing on election results).
In the 2020 general and regional elections, there were more than 2,000 polling stations across the country. This means that more than 12,000 individuals were employed to execute polling day activities across the country. Among these persons were presiding officers, polling agents, polling clerks and counting agents.
There were no major issues on polling day, including the counting of the ballots at the places of poll. In nine of the 10 national districts, accounting for more than half of the total votes cast, the tabulations were transparent and acceptable to all parties. But in some single district, problems arose, and these problems only arose after almost half of the votes of that district were tabulated and it became evident that the main opposition was in an unassailable lead.
Let it be known that the two main political parties would have known by the morning after the elections, how each other had performed. Their polling agents would have provided them with the individual counts of the ballot boxes in all the regions and copies of their statements of poll. The two main parties would therefore by daybreak have known the results of the elections.
The Returning Officers, who were appointed to tabulate the results of the elections, are employees of the Guyana Elections Commission. They are not independent of the Commission.
Returning Officers are election officers and the Oath of Office, to which they subscribe, speaks to them being appointed. They were recruited and paid by the Commission; they are supposed to comply with the operational procedures laid down by the Commission. It would therefore be incomprehensible for anyone to claim that GECOM cannot review the work of Returning Officers to ensure compliance with operational rules, the law, or to ensure accuracy.
I respectfully submit that the Chief Elections Officer (CEO) has superintendence over Returning Officers (ROs). For example, the CEO is responsible for approving the polling stations which are identified by the Returning Officer in each district. While, therefore, Returning Officers have statutory functions, they are not ‘a law’ until themselves.
Returning Officers are elections officers, and all other elections officers fall under the control of the Chief Elections Officer. It would constitute a perversion of justice were the Chief Elections Officer allowed to mechanistically declare a result, on the basis that it was made by a Returning Officer, when that result is flagrantly flawed.
It would equally constitute a miscarriage of the law were GECOM to not take action to prevent a less than transparent declaration of results by the Chief Elections Officer. The Elections Laws (Amendment) Act of 2000 expressly provides that: “The Chief Election Officer and the Commissioner of Registration shall notwithstanding anything in any written law be subject to the direction and control of the Commission.”
The Commission is clothed with full authority over the conduct of elections, including the conduct of election officers. The said Elections Laws (Amendment) Act 2000 says that:
“For the removal of doubts it is hereby declared that the power of the Commission to supervise the functioning of any election officers and the Commissioner or Deputy Commissioner shall include the power to issue directions to any such officer or the Commissioner or Deputy Commissioner in respect of the employment of any person by them in relation to the registration of electors or the conduct of elections.”
This provision places beyond question, the role of the Commission in inserting itself into the elections process, rather than adopting a posture of impotence and refusing to intervene to prevent a perversion of the elections process.
Members of the Commission are collectively responsible for the conduct of elections. They can and should be held culpable for negligence or for criminal malfeasance committed by elections officers or other miscreants, and thus become liable to be sanctioned by the international community.

(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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