When the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) meets today it will discuss the contents of the Ethnic Relations Com-mission’s (ERC) report into its hiring practices but another report which has proved controversial; a legal opinion by its own Legal Officer Excellence Dazzell has not made the agenda circulated to members.
At last week’s meeting tempers flared after Dazzell tabled the opinion which argues that a new voter’s list is not required. Government-nominated Commissioner Desmond Trotman questioned the “timing” of the tabling but Stabroek News has been reliably informed that both GECOM Chair, retired Justice James Patterson and Chief Election Officer Keith Lowenfield had been in receipt of the opinion before the April 30 expiration of the voters list.
Trotman told reporters last Tuesday that “we have never agreed at the commission…but suddenly yesterday, last night actually, I saw it for the first time there was some correspondence from her [Dazzell], which included a memo on this matter. And because, as far as I know, there was no agreement on that, I raised it today as a matter of concern. And I pointed out that the way in which it appeared before the commission had to do with some form of deceit by the legal officer.”
