AFC in talks with other parties for joinder list - Hughes

AFC in talks with other parties for joinder list – Hughes

Jul 14, 2025 News

Kaieteur News – Leader of the Alliance for Change, Nigel Hughes said Friday that his party is in active discussion with “like minded parties” to form a joinder list.

Leader of the Alliance for Change, Nigel Hughes

A joinder list is an agreement, making new parties subject to the terms of an existing pact as if they had originally signed it. Commonly, it is used in the context of shareholder agreements, where new persons, investors or parties acquiring shares need to be bound by existing rules and obligations. In signing a joinder agreement, the new party ‘’joins’ the original agreement which ensures that they are subjected to all of its terms and conditions.

At the party’s weekly press conference, Hughes was asked if his party was considering such an agreement.

“We have been in discussions with like-minded parties to look at that. GECOM has provided us with their interpretation of the law,” he told journalists.

He said whether or not the interpretation is consistent with the law, the ruling of the court is an entirely different matter altogether. Nevertheless, the AFC is in active discussions with other parties to explore a joinder list. One such party is the Assembly for Liberty and Prosperity (ALP).

In the 12th parliament, there was a joinder list comprising the Liberty and Justice Party (LJP), A New and United Guyana (ANUG) and The New Movement (TNM). However, the parties experienced some setbacks when Dr. Asha Kissoon of TNM refused to vacate the seat upon the completion of her service, as agreed by the parties.

Last month, former legal advisor of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Kurt Da Silva clarified that the law provides no flexibility in the allocation of seats under the joinder list system, emphasising that there is no provision for sharing seats between parties.

Da Silva explained that the Representation of the People Act (ROPA) clearly defines the joinder list and leaves “no room for deviation on the allocation of seats.” He stressed that while GECOM must formally address the matter, “it can only do so in accordance with the provisions of the law.” Da Silva said in the case of how it should treat ‘joinder lists’, referred to in RoPA as a ‘combination of lists,’ “the law is very clear and leaves no room for either GECOM or the parties themselves to treat with the allocation of seats in a different manner.”

The issue of joinder lists was raised by especially small parties during a briefing hosted by GECOM late last month. The parties had expressed strong doubts about GECOM’s preparedness, raising concerns about the unresolved joinder list mechanism.

Some parties criticised GECOM for its inaction on the issue, which has been ongoing for about two years without resolution. Many parties emphasised that the joinder list system could give smaller and newer parties a better chance at gaining seats in Parliament.

In a release last week, GECOM clarified that while two or more parties can come together to form a joinder list, the combination is treated as one list for the purpose of seat allocation.

GECOM explained that in the case of a seat within the combination, the party with the largest number of surplus votes will get that unallocated seat. In the case of only one seat having been won by the combination, that seat shall go to the party that received the largest number of votes among all of the parties in the combination.

The elections body said each party in the joinder retains its own representative and deputy representative for the purpose of extraction of candidates to become members of the national assembly. Therefore, it is only the representative or deputy representative of the party(ies) that are allocated seats can do such extraction.

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AFC, GECOM, joinder list, Nigel Hughes, parties

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