Amanza fails to stop elections and get on ballots of Regions 7-9

Aug 30, 2025 News

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─ to file appeal

Kaieteur News – Forward Guyana Movement party has vowed to immediately file an appeal to the decision of Chief Justice (Ag) Navindra Singh moments after he dismissed its case challenging the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) for excluding the party from national ballots in three regions.

A Fixed Date Application was filed on behalf of Krystal Hadassah Fisher, a national candidate of the Forward Guyana Movement (FMG), a party founded by politician and attorney, Amanza Walton Desir, which contends that GECOM’s exclusion of her party from ballots in Regions Seven, Eight, and Nine violates multiple constitutional rights.

In defence of the case, Dr. Vivian 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.”

In his decision on Friday, Justice Singh underscored the fact that the FGM did not submit a list of candidates for the regions makes the party ineligible to contest in the constituencies.

The chief justice explained that to contest the geographical constituency, the party must submit a list of candidates for that constituency.

“Section 11 of the Representation of the People Act (RoPA) stipulates that the party can only appear on a ballot of a geographic location if they submitted a list for the constituency,” Justice Singh explained.

He pointed out that Article 160 of the Constitution establishes that a party can only or enforce a geographical constituency if that party contests that geographical constituency.

The chief justice explained that the constitution sets up an electoral system which allocates specific seats to geographical constituencies in order to guarantee regional representation, broaden inclusivity, strengthen the link between citizens and parliament and reflect the country’s geographic and ethnic diversity.

The judge noted therefore that GECOM’s omission of the party from ballots in geographic constituencies it is not contesting in, is completely lawful.

He asserted that to place the party on those ballots would be a violation of the law and constitution.

The CJ held that the applicant’s argument that GECOM is discriminating against voters from particular regions is “ludicrous and fallacious,” since there is no evidence that has been produced to show that GECOM has in any way limited or restricted the participation of any party in the upcoming elections.

“The applicant has not shown in any way that GECOM has unlawfully determined which party appears or not appear on the ballot paper of any geographical constituency. In fact, based on the undisputed evidence before the court, the parties on whose behalf the applicant purports to be advocating, to wit, the FGM and the ALP, made deliberate decisions to not vie for a seat/s in those geographical constituencies which resulted in those parties not being placed on the ballot papers for the state constituencies.”

The judge imposed cost in the sum of $1 million each for the two respondents; Attorney General Anil Nandlall, S.C and GECOM.

Outside the courtroom, Nandlall told the media that he was happy that the court ruled in the manner in which it did. He held that he had long held that the matter was meritless.
“So, whatever uses this case may be in the future… I can’t see this point ever coming up again. But in Guyana, you can’t put anything beyond these political parties. They file anything that seemed to come to their head. So, we have now added enrichment to our jurisprudence as it relates to article 160 that has been the subject of multiple interpretations. And you know that we have not lost one of these cases, not one. Have we lost all these challenges?”

Meanwhile, presidential candidate of FGM, Ms. Walton-Desir expressed her disappointment with the ruling and affirmed the party’s commitment to pursue the appeal. She said the fight for fair representation in the electoral process must continue.

In a subsequent statement, the party asserted that it respects the judgment, but profoundly disagrees with it.

“In our view, this ruling has implications far beyond Forward Guyana Movement or Ms. Fisher. It touches the very core of our democracy, where sovereignty belongs to the people under Article 9, and where inclusionary democracy is mandated by Article 13. It is not the purpose of legal cases to seek a particular outcome from a particular judge. To approach them in that way would be to resign the society to cynicism and hopelessness.”

Furthermore, FGM said it is important that such cases are brought, for citizens have both a right and a duty to clarify the law. They must be brought because democracy demands it.
“We commend Ms. Fisher for her courage in raising this matter on behalf of all voters. And we will appeal because this fight is bigger than one case. It is about whether Guyana will entrench exclusion or whether it will embrace the inclusionary democracy promised by our Constitution,” the party said in the statement.

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• Amanza, appeal, ballots, Elections, stop

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