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Civil society must unite in call for real electoral reforms- GHRA
Kaieteur News – The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) has called for a united front by civil society organisations in pressing government for real electoral reforms and not those being proposed by the Attorney General Chambers.
The GHRA made the comments in response to remarks by Attorney General, Anil Nandlall regarding the status of the organisation among other issues. “In light of this reality, civic organisations would do well to remember that in electoral reform matters, while the major parties will skirmish about details (such as RoPA amendments) their track record for fundamental reform is abysmally poor. The civic response to this state of affairs should be to invest time and effort in creating a strong civic position around agreed reforms. Meaningful civic engagement with party political sectors as a whole would then be possible,” GHRA said in a statement.
The GHRA recently said that reforming the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) and the implementation of single-seat constituencies should be the priorities if government is really serious about amending the Representation of the People Act (RoPA). Two weeks ago government released draft amendments to RoPA, which is laced with draconian penalties for electoral malpractice and also a most controversial proposal to break up Region Four into four sub-districts. Since unveiling the proposals, political parties and civil society grouping have hammered the proposed amendments, calling on the administration to withdraw them.
The GHRA said the proposed consultation to amend the RoPA is calculated to further, rather than reduce, political tensions in Guyana by keeping attention focused on the post-elections fiasco of 2020 and to sustain political polarization. To this extent, it constitutes a piece of monumental hypocrisy, the human rights body stated. According to the GHRA, priority action on electoral reform should be implementation of single-seat constituencies and reform of GECOM. “These reforms were unanimously approved both by the Constitutional Reform Commission and in Parliament by the Parliamentary Oversight Committee on Electoral Reform in 2000. However, subsequent efforts over the next decade by civic and religious bodies, the diplomatic community and business sector to implement the reforms were successfully frustrated by the combined resistance of the leadership of the PPP and the PNC,” the GHRA stated.
The human rights body said, revival of the quest to implement those reforms, not the distraction of amending RoPA, should be the current focus of civic action. “Both PPP Governments, between 2000 – 2015 and the APNU+AFC between 2015 – 2020 had ample opportunity to address these reforms but chose not to do so, preferring to monopolise GECOM to keep MPs accountable to the party leader rather than to the people who elected them.
In line with the new orientation, the GHRA is proposing that the consultation should focus on Composition, Structure and Powers of GECOM; and Completion of the approved reforms for expansion of single-seat constituency. The body said ample documentation exists to enable the current generation to understand why our indefensible electoral system has survived. It has nothing to do with RoPA technicalities, but everything to do with a persistent, mutual leadership cover-up to resist real changes.
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