Gecom chairmanship too important to be left to PPP, PNC to exclusion of civil society

Dear Editor,

Much has been said about the ongoing debate over the selection of a Gecom Chairman to replace Dr Steve Surijbally, and both the President and Opposition Leader must share the blame. I will start with the President, who appeared to believe the constitutional clause governing the selection process actually gives priority to candidates who are, were or could become judges.

While the President’s interpretation engendered spirited debate, the debate itself could have been avoided had the President, knowing he was going to deviate from the norm of simply selecting a name from the Opposition Leader’s list, clearly spelled out his interpretation and expectation to the Opposition Leader even before Dr Surujbally stepped down. It actually took a couple of back and forth exchanges in the media before the President’s position would become crystalized, but that cost the President unnecessary political capital in the area of clear and concise leadership.

The Opposition Leader, when he was President of Guyana, was privy to a report from the Carter Center to Gecom after the 2006 elections, strongly recommending reforming Gecom. The recommendations included, but were not limited to the following:

  1. Gecom should be independent from the government and be accountable to and receive funding from the National Assembly. The independence of Gecom from the government’s administration will bolster the commission’s credibility and independence.
  2. The Carter-Price formula for Gecom should be changed to ensure that Gecom is not divided solely along political lines.
  3. Gecom should be composed of individuals who are solely committed to carrying out a successful and transparent elections process and who have the confidence of political parties, but can also maintain independence. As noted in the Carter Center’s report on the 2001 elections, “As part of electoral reform efforts, Guyana should give careful consideration to alternative models, possibly reducing or eliminating political party representation and increasing the role of independent members of civil society and professional experts.”

So, there we have a timeline that goes back to 2006, and even 2001, where recommendations were made for the PPP regime to just not rely exclusively on the 1992 Carter-Price Formula, but explore avenues to make Gecom more transparent, independent and efficient in terms of same-day results delivery.

In fact, on the issue of results delivery, the 2006 Carter Center report urged Gecom to “Speed up the reporting of the vote count. This might be achieved using electronic means to transmit preliminary results. Such means should be tested thoroughly before the next general elections and, if possible, during local government elections.”

The recommendations, upon studious review, point to a Gecom that is 0 for 4. Gecom is not as independent from government as the Carter Center suggested, and the current heated public exchange over the choice for the Gecom chair position only underscores how politically dependent Gecom remains. The brouhaha over the Gecom post would even appear to a casual observer that the 2020 results are actually dependent on how the next Chairman of Gecom casts any deciding vote among the other six commissioners and not necessarily on how voters across the country cast their ballots.

Continuing with the review, Gecom continues to have six commissioners chosen evenly by the PPP and APNU/AFC (even though there is no AFC person serving as a commissioner). The political parties have not explored alternative models to the Carter-Price Formula, and Gecom has not expedited the counting of ballots to ensure same-day results delivery.

Editor, if we go back to 1990 when elections were scheduled, the then Opposition PPP discovered a heavily padded voters list and demanded a fresh list be produced. The removal of Justice Sir Harold Bollers as Elections Chairman was also requested and honoured because he was accused of lording over an elections rigging machinery. Those, and other factors, led to the Carter-Price Formula, which was supposed to be a makeshift mechanism to help get the country past the elections rigging era and into a new era where a better system would obtain, allowing for transparency and efficiency.

The fact that the PPP regime, under successive presidents, failed to ensure the types of requisite reforms at Gecom lends credence to the belief that the PPP liked the system as is, because the system served the PPP’s purpose, just like the much condemned Burnham Constitution, which became useful in the hands of the PPP for almost 23 years.

That Gecom is in dire need of reform, as pointed out by the Carter Center, cannot be overstated, but let us not be deluded into thinking that the upcoming Granger-Jagdeo tête-à-tête will be some sort of panacea, because this continues to magnify the continuing behaviour of important issues affecting the entire country being left to the PPP and PNC.

Who can forget the Jagan-Hoyte talks, the Jagdeo-Hoyte talks, and the Jagdeo-Corbin talks? Now we are going to have Granger-Jagdeo talks? This fostering of a perception of Guyana being divided between the PPP and PNC is unacceptable, because Guyana does not belong to either political party. These issues are far too important to be left to partisan players to the exclusion of civil society.

I close by urging Guyanese to seriously consider that, when it comes to elections hanky-panky, the PNC does have a horrible track record, but make no mistake, the PPP is no different. I want everyone to know that were it not for APNU-appointed Gecom Commissioner, Vincent Alexander, who confronted former Chief Elections Officer, Gocool Boodhoo, with his fuzzy formula in the 2015 elections tabulation, we wouldn’t be having this debate or any related discussion today. Mr Boodhoo would eventually go on to work as a consultant with the Local Government Ministry after he left Gecom.

Yours faithfully,

Emile Mervin