All systems and processes are in place for the holding of local government elections on November 12, Guyana Elections Com-mission (GECOM) Public Relations Officer Yolanda Ward says.
“We are within timelines and prepared to run off the elections,” she assured, when contacted by Stabroek News recently.
Asked if elections materials such as ink and ballot paper have been secured, Ward told Stabroek News that materials for all the polling stations are being sourced and they will be available “long before” elections day.
Asked why it was that GECOM was still advertising vacancies for temporary field staff given that training of polling day staff had already commenced, she said in some areas, GECOM had fallen short in its recruitment of polling day staff.
Because of the shortfall in polling day staff and people not coming forward to work on polling day, the commission took the decision to re-advertise the vacancies to be filled.
Yesterday was the deadline for the submission of applications for positions of presiding officers, assistant presiding officers, poll clerks, ballot clerks/counting assistant, and information clerks.
While training has begun, Ward said, training for new recruits will continue with any new intake. The training period is for two days. It is important to get the full complement of staff, she noted.
Meanwhile, some concerns have been expressed about the preparedness of GECOM given that on Nomination Day on September 21, a number of returning officers were not aware of their functions and did not properly advise a number of candidates and nominators of candidates on their rights. Some nominators claimed that their names were fraudulently placed on lists or they were duped into signing as nominators and could not have their names removed within a given deadline.
To date, the administration of GECOM have not addressed the preparedness of its returning officers on Nomination Day and all efforts to get a comment have been futile.
A GECOM commissioner told Stabroek News that GECOM would be assessing the outcome of Nomination Day and it is expected that there could be additional training of polling day staff.
“We expect them to be ready. We couldn’t be anything but ready and we would be failing in our mandate for the country in respect of conducting free and fair elections if we are not ready,” he said.
