PPP Commissioners continue to stymie the work of GECOM

― this is the engineering of a constitutional crisis; Opposition Commissioners only referring to one aspect of the constitution – Commissioner Alexander

DPI, Guyana, Tuesday, March 12, 2019

Opposition appointed commissioners of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) continue to stymie the work of the elections management body as they continue to walk out of statutory meetings, preventing the commission’s agenda from being achieved.

According to government’s appointed Commissioner of GECOM, Vincent Alexander, who was speaking to the media, today’s meeting came to an end while discussing matters arising from the minutes of the previous meeting.

“Under that item, an old question was raised, ‘we seemed not to be discussing an elections schedule’. The commissioners nominated by the Leader of the Opposition made their usual interventions and then asked to leave,” Alexander said.

He pointed out that “what is of interest is that on this occasion, if we had gone through the agenda, the next item is correspondence and there is a piece of correspondence emanating from Commissioner [Bibi] Shaddick with a proposed schedule for elections that would have been discussed.”

According to Alexander, the PPP commissioners “have stymied the discussion of their own proposal by virtue of departing the meeting”. He also pointed out that for the last three meetings, the Opposition Commissioners have walked out hence the current agenda has not been discussed in its entirety.

He noted that during the meeting, the Opposition Commissioners’ dispute has been the same. “Their argument is that people seem to want to discuss house-to-house registration and what they think should be discussed is a schedule for election within the April period before the current list loses its life.” Alexander further explained that the Opposition Commissioners are only referring to one aspect of the constitution “rather than the whole question, how does one provide an efficient election?”

Commissioner Alexander believes that a crisis is being engineered, “as I have said before, it is clear that what is being attempted, here is the engineering of a constitutional crisis as defined by the Leader of the Opposition and his nominees here…”

Alexander noted that the GECOM commissioners are slated to meet again on Tuesday, March 19, 2019.

Rebecca Ganesh

Image: Keno George