Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo has expressed surprise that Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Chairman Justice (Ret’d) James Patterson is reluctant to meet with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) after the elections management body had requested its help.
“I suspect that he (Patterson) is taking directions from elsewhere,” Jagdeo told a news conference that was held yesterday at his Church Street, Queenstown office.
Based on GECOM’s request for help, Jagdeo said, the United Nations sent a team that did an assessment of GECOM’s needs and subsequently proposed that a UNDP official meet with the Chairman. However, he charged that Patterson is reluctant to meet with the UNDP official to discuss the recommendations, which include offers of assistance. “In spite of his (Patterson’s) lofty talk about impartiality and good conduct of elections,” Jagdeo said, “we can trace partisan actions on his part to every moment when there is a critical decision that has to be made at the level of the commission.”
