Longtime Working People’s Alliance (WPA) activist Desmond Trotman, 71, was yesterday sworn in as the newest member of the Guyana Elections Commission (Gecom) amidst criticism by governing coalition partner the Alliance for Change (AFC), which said it expected that the appointee would have been either a woman or a youth as it had proposed.
Trotman took the oath of office before President David Granger at a swearing in ceremony at State House, where no AFC member was present.
“…The AFC as a party, I can tell you, is deeply disturbed and disappointed that it was not chosen again to name the replacement. This is an ongoing saga. It has been ongoing at least eight years, I would say, between the [former] opposition parties. We had been promised the position for some time and we had really hoped that, having been seen as a worthy party of the coalition, that we would be seen as worthy to name one of our ranks in the position,” AFC Leader Raphael Trotman (no relation to Desmond Trotman) told reporters at a symposium before the swearing in ceremony.
