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AFC to contest in all regions
…concerned about GECOM’s preparedness
AFC supporters rally around Nigel Hughes after submission of list
By Francwa Fortune
Kaieteur News – Presidential Candidate for the Alliance For Change (AFC) Nigel Hughes, on Monday announced that his party despite being hit with a number of resignations will be contesting in both General and Regional Election in all ten regions.
He made the comments as his party presented its list of candidates to the Guyana Elections Commission at the Umana Yana. “We presented the list for all the regions in all the categories. We’ve identified, the head of the list, the presidential candidate, and in several regions, we’ve oversubscribed,” Hughes told reporters.
When asked about his Prime Ministerial (PM) candidate Hughes said, “we are going to announce that by Friday, we have to abide by all party procedures. We have a national executive committee, which is the highest decision-making body of the party and it has to consider all the names that are on the list as potential candidates for prime minister.”
The presidential hopeful mentioned that should his party be elected, 50% of their cabinet would be women and the members are also ethnically diverse. He added that in order for him to get candidates and their signatures, he had to go the extra mile and travel to some regions however, he was able to do so swiftly.
Hughes also confirmed that his list of candidates consists of 30% youths. He said too he is not worried that the We Invest In Nationhood (WIN) party will go after his support base, noting that his party remains confident in the content of their policy and the move forward. “WIN is, as you can tell, is extremely popular. We’ve had parties like WIN before, which have been extremely popular. We are confident in the content of our policies…” he said. Asked whether he regrets the coalition between the APNU did not materialise, Hughes told reporters that he does not regret, noting that the AFC went to two elections standing as a single party and they have now returned to their roots, core principles and their approach to politics.
Hughes was also asked about GECOM’s preparedness to which he said he hopes the electoral body changes its conduct ahead of the polls. “I don’t know about expectations but I do hope GECOM changes its conduct from being unfair to at least having some semblance of fairness. As you know, they took a decision last week Thursday that the AFC was going to be the second party, then, they got a message and a photograph of a PPP member and they changed that decision. I don’t know if any other political party has that power to change GECOM’s decision,” the AFC leader said.
Meanwhile, in a statement, the AFC has urged GECOM to permit the encoding of Lists of Candidates to be examined by party representatives and observers. Procedurally, the party said when the Chief Election Officer receives the Lists of Candidates from political parties, they are passed on to a team of encoders to verify the information for candidates and nominators, and to ensure the number of nominators for each region is accurate. “Typically, these lists are verified in the order in which they are submitted to the CEO. The verification process is also done to ensure candidates and nominators do not appear on more than one List of Candidates. Therefore, each party’s List of Candidates is verified against all other preceding Lists of Candidates. We wish to emphasise the importance of GECOM processing the Lists of Candidates in the order of submission to ensure the process remains fair and transparent,” the AFC said.
According to the party, given GECOM’s pattern of favourable actions towards the People’s Progressive Party and the fact that the Chief Election Officer distorted the order of contesting parties camping outside the Umana Yana, “we are concerned that the encoding of the lists may also be manipulated. As a contesting party in the September 2025 General and Regional Elections, interested in a fair and transparent process, we call on GECOM to permit the scrutiny of the verification process from start to finish by both party representatives and observers,’ the party said.
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