GECOM deliberation on process to compile LGE Voters List set for today

Dec 13, 2022 News

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Kaieteur News – The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) will today deliberate on a method that will allow for the compilation of a Voters List for the upcoming Local Government Elections (LGE).

This was explained by Elections Commissioner, Vincent Alexander when he sought to clarify the demarcation of boundaries issue that has contributed to the postponement of Nomination Day and could also see a push back in the date for LGE polls set for March 13 next year.

GECOM recently accused Alexander in a Press Statement of misinformation after he told this publication that the Elections Body agreed that Local Government Minister, Nigel Dharamlall has no authority to demarcate constituency boundaries and that it must now come up with a process that allows the List to be complied within the law. Alexander restated on Sunday that the law does not grant the Minister power to change constituencies and insisted that that responsibility is only granted to GECOM.

Alexander in his explanation said that GECOM’s voters list is based on Constituencies devised by the Authority, so where the Minister has sought to make changes to constituency boundaries, this must be undone before any List of Eelectors are down up. Alexander said that GECOM’s last meeting, it accepted by all that the way the body went about preparing its list was wrong and needed to be corrected “by going into a process that allowed for its preparation as the law requires it to be prepared.”.

He said that the law is unambiguous as who has the power to establish boundaries for local government areas and that would be the Minister. He clarified therefore, that a constituency is not a local government area. He said that the only law that makes reference to constituencies in terms of who has the authority, is the Local Government Elections Amendment Act Section 38 (A) (4) and (5).  “And 5 unambiguously says it is GECOM that has to either combine or divide the divisions for the purpose of creating constituencies.”

Alexander said that the public needs to understand the difference between the local government areas, which is the area encompassing what is called Neighbourhood Democratic Councils (NDC) or municipalities and the constituencies which are part of the local government areas. “So, you have to establish the local areas first and the minister does that. But having established the local area, he is then authorized to indicate how many seats are going to be constituency seats. Once he has done that, he then signals to GECOM how many contingencies should be created and GECOM has the authority to create those constituencies.” This is interrelated to the voters list, Alexander continued. He said that “The problem we have with the list is that the list was not extracted on the basis of local government areas and constituencies and therefore the electorate were unable to make objections on the principle of residency.”

Local government election provides for residency, Alexander further related. “You must be resident in the constituency of the local authority in which you are either going to vote or going to contest. And therefore, when we have claims and objections an elector must be able to go to the list of the constituency and to see if there is anyone on that list who does not reside in that list in keeping with the provisions of the law about residency and to object that person on the list. That was not done; hence we have to redo this whole question of the preparation of the list.” Alexander submitted. He explained the importance of the interrelationship between the preparation of the list and constituencies, “because GECOM has to use the constituencies as the basis for the specific list because the lists are by constituencies,” he said. Also, as each constituency will have a person elected, GECOM has to identify the eligible voters. So even as the body seeks the manner in which it will approach the list, Alexander said they have to look at the demarcation of the local authorities and the constituencies so that the configured list corresponds.

GECOM’s press release “has itself sought to confuse the public,” Alexander charged as it claimed that the minister “might” have changed constituency boundaries and submitted that that was in his power. Alexander said that GECOM is fully aware that changes were made in terms of constituencies based on the publication of Order 40 and 50. In those orders, Alexander stated, the minister sought to specify constituencies, which he has no authority to do.  He said the minister has configured constituency boundaries as in Toevlugt/ Patentia where he added Vriesland/Patosi and in Yarowkabra/ Hararuni and Lamaha Yarowkabra they have increased the sizes.

Alexander said the latter locations did not exist as local authorities prior to the last elections, so where the government has claimed to be undoing a wrong by the last administration, “what they have done is resize one authority and downsize the other; and in the process, has interfered with constituency boundaries”. He added that the same has occurred with Mabaruma which was made a township under the Granger administration. He said the government has sought to extend the township which they can do but has also sought to identify it as a constituency. He said that GECOM is in a position to know the constituencies the minister sought to configure and make corrections where necessary, hence the purpose of the process leading up to the compilation of the list.

Alexander highlighted that in 2016 and 2018 GECOM did what the law required to determine the demarcation of boundaries of constituency. He said the process the body used at the time involved Registration Officers and Political Scrutineers doing the initial work on the ground and making recommendations to GECOM. The Commission would in turn determine what the final boundaries are. Alexander said that GECOM must not pretend as if there has been no process employed and are ignorant to same. For him, he said such an action is a “precursor” to any work on the list since the list has to reflect the configuration. He said that,  “GECOM has to do its work,” that it has to go back on the ground and where the Mnister has sought to impose himself, it must be address.

Nomination Day which was supposed to be held Monday was postponed following issues arising about the legality of the list. The Matter was brought to the fore after the Opposition Political Party took the matter to court. Alexander said the matter can possibly affect the election date since no deadline could be drawn up until the list contention is rectified.

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