Dear Editor,
Once the no-confidence motion passed, David Arthur Granger became a figurehead, operating on skeletal caretaker powers until the people’s voice is heard in a new election. It is shocking, shameful, barefaced, despotic and utterly disrespectful to the CCJ’s decision for Mr. Granger to suggest the electoral process is negotiable or that he has a role to play in it. His wings are constitutionally clipped once the no-confidence vote defeated his government. After that happens, the electoral process is then set in constitutional stone. The constitution is explicit on this. An election must happen in three months. If we use three months from the date of the CCJ’s decision, it puts the election at September 2019. Neither Gecom nor the President can dictate, alter or influence a constitutionally mandated election period flowing from a no-confidence vote. The President’s statements about Gecom’s readiness are bogus blarney. Readiness is not a constitutional condition for holding an election after a no-confidence vote. If it was, the constitution would have explicitly said so, particularly given our turbulent history of rigged elections and the political domination of our electoral commission. Every functioning democracy with a no-confidence constitutional provision has a defined date or timeframe. Every-one has an election within that timeframe. Guyana is no different.
Inherent in any no-confidence provision is the inflexible duty of the electoral body and the government to ensure the electoral body is always in a state of readiness. Anything less is nothing but deliberate political interference. This is necessary to cement the democratic foundation of the state, especially in a country where the electoral commission is always politically dominated by the government of the day. Anything else is subversion of the judicial arm of the state (in this case the CCJ) as well as gamesmanship with the electoral commission and the electoral process, exactly the behaviour that leads to rigged, tainted, suspended and delayed elections. Where the electoral commission and the government in control of it fails to prepare, it simply must prepare to fail. The government does not get to create an environment of lack of readiness with the election commission and then turn around and claim lack of readiness when it and Gecom knew they faced a no-confidence motion from November 16, 2018 and had over 4 months from that notice date to the end of the 3-month constitutional period to be ready. And to make this even more ridiculous and suspicious, Gecom and the government then got another 3 months until the CCJ decision, yet nothing was done to ensure readiness.
This lack of readiness contention stinks. A significantly more complex local government election was held on Nov 12, 2018. This was 4 days before the no-confidence motion was lodged with the National Assembly on Nov 16! Yes, that’s right, 4 days before! This government and the government-controlled Gecom were fully ready and had absolutely no problems with the list of electors used in that much more complex local govt election 4 days before the no-confidence motion! They fully participated. Suddenly and shockingly, 39 days later when the NCV passed, this government and Gecom were not ready to conduct an election and has serious concerns with that list.
Gecom or the government cannot constitutionally interfere with, change or block the electoral timeframes established from of a no-confidence vote. Gecom is simply bound to deliver elections as stipulated by the constitution. It has no power or right to alter anything. That never happens in any functioning democracy and for the President and his merry men to suggest it is heinous. The no-confidence vote is the strongest bulwark in Guyana against an oversized executive power in the balance of powers equation. Nothing should be able to water it down. The CCJ has to set a date for elections to salvage this country’s fragile democratic dignity.
Yours faithfully,
M. Maxwell
