GECOM approves report on demarcation of Local Govt. constituency boundaries

Feb 01, 2023 News

– Opposition Commissioners reject document, says it’s a representation of Minister’s illicit attempts at gerrymandering

Kaieteur News – Opposition nominated representatives on the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) have rejected the report of the Chief Elections Officer, (CEO) Vishnu Persaud on the demarcation of constituency boundaries calling it a move to legalize the Minister of Local Government’s previous act of gerrymandering the boundaries of the local authorities.

Last December, GECOM had cause to reverse the demarcation of constituency boundaries after recognizing that the Local Government Minister, Nigel Dharamlall, did not have the power to make such changes.

Opposition-nominated Commissioner, Vincent Alexander

It was noted then that the Minister’s actions would affect the voters’ list since GECOM, as the elections body responsible for issuing the List of Voters, could not provide same based on the constituency boundaries changed by the minister.

The Commission later embarked on its own demarcation activity under the auspices and supervision of the CEO and staff of the commission.

However, their report presented on Tuesday during a statutory meeting of GECOM, according Opposition nominated Commissioner Vincent Alexander, was nothing more than a regurgitation of the minister’s demarcation of the boundaries.

Alexander, in a letter to the editor published in today’s newspaper said that GECOM approved the report with support of the Commission’s Chair, Justice (Ret’d) Claudette Singh and all three Government nominated Commissioners.

Alexander, an A Partnership for National Unity +Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) representative on the Commission said that the report represents exactly what the Minister had ‘illicitly’ sought to foist on GECOM before.

“GECOM has now clothed the Minister’s illicit act with its approval,” Alexander said.

According to Alexander, the criteria and procedures (geography, community and population) for the demarcation of constituencies previously used were thrown out.
However, he noted that the Chairperson and the Government appointed Commissioners argued that there are no minutes of that meeting to prove this.

“The CEO previously argued that there were no points of reference of the previously developed and used procedures and criteria. Documents were produced to show that they existed. He then resorted to contend that there were no approved minutes,” Alexander said.

Further, the longest standing GECOM Commissioner said, “The records clearly show that the procedures and criteria that were discussed from May 2009 to December 2009 were actually implemented and were the basis for the configuration of constituencies in 2016 and 2018,” Alexander explained.

He said that the Opposition appointed Commissioners have reserved the right to provide statistical evidence to show that the proposed boundaries are simply acts of gerrymandering aimed at giving the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) an unfair advantage in the upcoming Local Government Elections (LGE).

Alexander has submitted to the Election body documents indicating the criteria and procedure outlined for the demarcation of boundaries. He recommended that GECOM goes back to its available process and the criteria used for the kinds of mapping on which the list should be issued.

As part of the process, Alexander had said that party representatives as well as registration officials would go on the ground and together agree on boundaries where GECOM would have the last say on those demarcations. Alexander told this newspaper that as part of the criteria, GECOM is to take into consideration, geography, communities and their population.

Alexander said that Opposition Commissioners had previously rejected the CEO’s explanation insisting that there are procedures and criteria that have to be used. To not follow the necessary procedure leaves the door open for citizens to be disenfranchised if for example, a community of particular supporters is split, or if supporters of a particular party are bunched with supporters of another party, he explained.

He said that criteria usually entail fairly similar numbers of persons in a constituency and other factors that contribute to a balanced configuration within the boundaries.

To that end, Alexander said he committed to taking the documents, with the outlined GECOM methodology, to the CEO.

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Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Nigel Dharamlall, ocal Government Minister, Vincent Alexander, Vishnu Persaud

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