The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) yesterday defended a decision to deny a request by the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) for an extension of the recently-concluded continuous registration exercise, saying that it has statutory timelines to meet.
“The conduct of elections in any part of the world is guided by statutory timelines. It is no different in Guyana and the PPP is fully aware of these key timelines,” GECOM said in a statement that was issued yesterday in response to the PPP’s claim that the decision, which was made by way of GECOM Chairman James Patterson using his casting vote to break a deadlock, was partisan.
The PPP on Wednesday noted that the exercise, which officially ended on July 8th, 2018, was initially scheduled to commence on May 7th, 2018, but actually began two weeks after that date, thereby truncating the registration period.
