Court to rule on Friday in Amanza party’s fight for place on ballot

Aug 28, 2025 News

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Kaieteur News – In his final submission before the High Court in the matter which challenges the Guyana Elections Commission over its decision to exclude the Forward Guyana Movement (FGM) from the election ballot in three, attorney for the applicant, Dr Vivian Richards maintained that the application of the electoral laws is not in conformity with the constitution.

The case is being presided over by Chief Justice (Ag), Navindra Singh who is set to rule on Friday August 29, at 14:00 hours. The Fixed Date Application filed on behalf of Krystal Hadassah Fisher, a national candidate of the Forward Guyana Movement (FMG), a party which is founded by politician and attorney, Amanza Walton Desir contends that GECOM’s exclusion of her party from ballots in Regions Seven, Eight, and Nine violates multiple constitutional rights.

According to Fisher, guarantees including the right to vote, equal suffrage, non-discrimination, and proportional representation. In defence of the case, Dr. Williams reiterated his view that the Representation of the People’s Act (RoPA) and the application of sections of the law by GECOM are in conflict with the constitution.

“It creates tension with the principal object of the Constitution; the court must side with the Constitution. We ask the court to interpret those inconsistencies in favour of constitutionality.”

He held that sections of the law allow for discrimination and disenfranchisement of sections of Guyana’s electorate. However, Justice Singh reminded the lawyer that much of his submission was being regurgitated and that he was yet to respond to the arguments of the defending attorneys. “You really are not responding to anything… you haven’t pointed out anything you want to reply to, you have effectively repeated everything you said yesterday,” Justice Singh commented. In his presentation, Attorney General Anil Nandall S.C maintained that the case is without merit.

“Your Honour this case is clearly without merit… Chaos has overtaken us because Mr. Williams has departed from his pleadings and has gone all over the place; a lot was said this morning that was not part of the original case. The case has shifted from yesterday to this morning and the shift has made the case even worse. Fisher [the applicant] is clearly on a fishing expedition and the lawyer is also at sea.” Nandlall stated.

He noted that GECOM acted in keeping with the decision taken by the party and conformity with the provisions of the law. “Political parties make decision based on their strengths and weakness. They strategise to see how best they can maximise their resources, and as you know resources have limit. So, we as political parties have to decide how to carefully plot out our resources. They [FGM)] decided in a calculated, strategic decision how many seats they wanted to contest for nationally, and in doing so omitted to contest in certain regions,” Nandlall reasoned.

Similarly, Arudranauth Gossai said that the vote comes from the constituency lists and then simultaneously is counted to the National Top Up List. “In other words, if you don’t contest in geographical constituency 9, you can’t get a vote for your top up list because you don’t have a geographical constituency list.”

“I don’t believe that the court can find that with the National Top Up List alone that the parties can automatically find themselves on the ballot for the geographical constituency where they have not submitted lists, otherwise the court would be committing a breach of law.”

The FGM filed legal proceedings against GECOM after discovering that the party was omitted from the national ballot in Regions Seven, Eight, and Nine. FGM, Walton Desir petitioned the High Court, seeking inter alia an immediate halt to the electoral process until the party’s candidates are properly included in the national ballots for the affected regions.

FGM has argued that the omissions not only disenfranchise voters in those regions, but also impact the party’s ability to secure votes and seats in the national assembly. The court application seeks constitutional relief under Part 56 of the Civil Procedure Rules, claiming that GECOM’s actions violate Articles 59, 149, and 160 of the constitution, as well as provisions of the Representation of the People Act (ROPA). Outside the courtroom, Nandlall and Gossai told reporters that it is unlikely that the case would halt the elections slated for next Monday.

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• Amanza Walton-Desir, ballot, Elections, Forward Guyana Movement, GECOM

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