The distribution of funds for party scrutineering activities in the house-to-house registration exercise called for “more intense and better planned engagements” among opposition parties.
This is according to Cabinet Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon who was asked by reporters to comment on the issue on Thursday at his post-Cabinet media briefing.
“I want to believe that they may want to invest more time and interest on trying to work together on some modus operandi so that they don’t have to go to court to resolve such issues,” he said.
Luncheon said he could not see why more of an effort could not have been made in this regard. He cautioned that he was not getting involved since the PPP had submitted its list of scrutineers who have since begun work.
However, he said it was for the opposition to find some sort of compromise and work together since the opposition had a formidable role to play, which was recognized by the Constitution, “not for them to be a divided opposition”.
The AFC went to court and an order was subsequently granted in its favour for the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to allocate monies equitably to the political parties for scrutineering activities for the house-to-house registration. However, it has still not received any allocation.
At its weekly press briefing on Thursday, the PNCR said that if the AFC’s desire to have GECOM deal with separate allocations to political parties increased the resources available to opposition parties, “we would not object to the AFC initiative”.
It said it remained ready to discuss the manner in which it would deal with the allocation of resources for the opposition.
Party executive Amna Ally said the party believed it was in the best interest of opposition parties to work together on issues such as registration and elections. However, she said, the party could not dictate the tactics and strategy of other parties. “Our position to work with, and collaborate with, all position parties will remain an important strategy of our political work in Guyana.”
She emphasized too that the monies being granted for scrutineers was advocated for by the party and after years of such campaigning, the government finally agreed.
Commenting on the basic principles for the allocation of scrutineers, Ally said it was a percentage based on seats in parliament, as proposed at the last meeting of the joint opposition parties.
According to her, members at the meeting agreed that a small team from the parties would meet later to work out the details and that the AFC leader would contact PNCR General Secretary Oscar Clarke to agree on the timing and venue of such a meeting. She said the AFC had failed to meet Clarke, despite repeated reminders to agree on a subsequent meeting.
The AFC, she said, indicated that it would still move to the courts for its intervention in the matter and at that point, the PNCR had made it clear that to avoid any show of disunity among opposition parties, it would not enter appearance in the court matter.
However, when contacted about the missed meeting, AFC Leader Raphael Trotman said that both he and AFC CEO Clayton Hall had called and left messages for Clarke but never got any response.
No List
Meanwhile, Trotman told this newspaper that his party did not submit a list of scrutineers to be accredited by GECOM.
All political parties interested in the house-to-house registration exercise, can, by law, appoint scrutineers to monitor the process and the elections commission is obligated to accredit them, but it is left up to the political parties to exercise those rights.
The AFC leader said no list was submitted because the party felt there was no hope that if persons’ names were put on the list, they would receive payment.
He recalled that for the last elections, the party was forced to pay its polling agents.
“We have a list and are willing and ready to participate in the process but we don’t want to put our people out in the fields, knowing that they won’t get remuneration,” Trotman said.
He said the party also decided against this move following its experience in the past when it submitted a list for persons to be accredited as observers and the agents started to receive calls from GECOM officials offering them higher remuneration.
The AFC said it was forced to withdraw from mounting scrutineers for the house-to-house registration exercise and blames GECOM for ignoring the court order which instructed it to allocate monies equitably to the parties to offset scrutineering expenses. (Heppilena Ferguson)
