UNDP offers to help Guyana with electoral reform

Oct 16, 2020 News

UNDP Resident Representative, Jairo Valverde (left), and Attorney General, Anil Nandlall, on Wednesday (Photo Credit: Attorney General’s Chambers)

Kaieteur News – The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has offered assistance to Guyana on the issue of electoral reform.
According to information issued by the Ministry of Legal Affairs, UNDP’s resident representative, Jairo Valverde, met with Attorney General (AG) and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, on Wednesday where support for Guyana’s electoral systems, among other things was discussed.
According to the Ministry, Valverde spoke of a plethora of technical support that the UNDP can offer on a myriad of governance issues including but not limited to the strengthening of democracy, justice reform and electoral reform.
Valverde indicated that the UNDP has in excess of eight thousand (8,000) technical persons deployed across the world assisting various governments in electoral reform and other key areas that require technical support in governance.
As such, he offered to provide technical assistance and support to implement the recommendations for improvement and change that would be made to the electoral process after the conclusion of the Commission of Inquiry (COI) established by President Irfaan Ali to examine and investigate the events following the 2nd March, 2020, elections in Guyana.
In return, the AG highlighted a number of projects that Government will be unfolding, a component of which is to make Guyana the arbitration center for CARICOM and Latin America as well as Constitutional Reform to fortify Guyana’s democratic process.
He noted that the UNDP Guyana office has made strides in all sectors and gave its support, especially in the legal sector.
In relation to constitutional reform, which has garnered much attention as a result of the events that unfolded after the 2nd March, 2020 election and preceding the no-confidence motion in 2018, Nandlall emphasized that while constitutional reform is very desirable and needed, constitutional compliance is equally important.
“One can have the best Constitution in the world, but if politicians blatantly refuse to comply with it then society becomes dysfunctional,” the Attorney General added.

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