The Official List of Electors expired yesterday, hours after another Statutory Meeting of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) came to a premature end.
The meeting which lasted a mere 30 minutes was suspended for a lack of quorum following a walkout by opposition-nominated Commissioner Robeson Benn.
Stabroek News understands that Benn attempted to speak under the third agenda item “Commissioners’ and Chairman’s remarks” but was rebuffed by Retired Justice James Patterson, Chairman of the commission. As a consequence he walked out of the meeting which was later dissolved as the absence of Commissioner Bibi Shadick meant it no longer had a quorum.
The expiration of the life of the voters list means that it will have to be updated for the purposes of the next general elections.
This is the ninth meeting to be aborted due to a walkout by opposition-nominated commissioners but unlike the eight other occasions Patterson appears to have applied Article 226 of the Constitution to facilitate another meeting on Thursday.
Commissioners have told this newspaper that they received a letter from the Chairman inviting them to the meeting scheduled in accordance with the articles as amended by the Constitution (Amendment) Act, No. 2 of 2000.
It provides for the quorum for a meeting of the Commission to be the Chairman and not less than four members of the Commission – two each appointed by the President and the Opposition respectively.
The articled further provides that “If at any stage of a duly summoned meeting, a quorum is not present due to the absence of members without good cause to be determined by the Chairman then the meeting is to be adjourned for two calendar days” before concluding that If at the adjourned meeting there is still no quorum then, the members present, being not less than four members including the Chairman, shall be deemed to be a quorum and any decision made at any such adjourned meeting shall be valid and binding.
This application of the constitutional provisions provides a possibility for the Government-nominated commission and Chairman Patterson to make decisions without the presence of the opposition- nominated members of the commission.
Since the passage of the December 21 no confidence motion the meetings of the commission have been fraught with conflict. Last week Shadick recommended that meetings be suspended until the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) has ruled on the legality of the Motion.
Shadick who had walked out following attempts to discuss house-to-house registration told Stabroek News that she will continue the action for as long as the commission attempts to discuss the issue.
“Since March 26th, when all we did was go through minutes of the three meetings prior, we have discussed nothing because they have been unable to present a plan for the holding of elections without house-to-house… as long as GECOM proposes to discuss house-to-house registration, I will continue to walk out. House-to-house registration is not constitutional… it is not the law, Continuous registration is law,” Shadick explained.
Maintained
She noted that the Chairman has maintained that each meeting after the aborted meeting of March 26 was a continuation of that meeting but the commission has been unable to move beyond agenda item seven, which was originally “Elections 2019,” then “Elections” and later “Registration.”
Patterson has since relented and ended the prolonged meeting last week.
Shadick had also noted that with government-nominated commissioner Vincent Alexander arguing that there is no mandate for the discussion of election 2019 since no date has been named and she refusing to discuss plans for election unless the discussion excludes house-to-house registration, a stalemate exists. It is because of this stalemate that she suggested that the meetings be postponed until the CCJ rules on the validity of the motion, which could potentially trigger early polls.
Government-nominated Commissioner Desmond Trotman disagreed with Shadick telling this newspaper it was unreasonable to expect the pace of GECOM’s work to be dictated by the pace of the CCJ’s work.
“I will not support it,” he declared adding that “it is ironic that early this year the opposition commissioners were accusing the other commissioners of stalling the work of the commission to wait for a court decision, which was not true, and yet now they are openly asking us to halt work to wait for the CCJ.”
Meanwhile, preparation for House-to-House registration continues while the process is subject to legal challenge.
Overseas-based Guyanese Bibi Zeenatoun has initiated legal action to prevent the planned national house-to-house registration exercise.
In a fixed date application to be heard on May 28 the pensioner, through her lawyer Anil Nandlall, has asked that the High Court declare the proposed exercise “unconstitutional” and grant orders restraining GECOM and its staff from conducting the exercise, not only in June but at “any date thereafter,” as she contends it would disenfranchise her.
Zeenatoun, who “voted in elections in Guyana as recent as the 2018 Local Government Elections,” fears that she will be excluded from the proposed exercise and, thereby, in effect, will be de-registered and “unlawfully denied her statutory and constitutional right to be registered and to vote,” as she will be out of the country for five months beginning in May.
She has asked the court to validate this fear by granting a declaration that house-to-house registration would exclude her and other qualified registrants currently on the National Register of Registrants and on the Official List of Electors, in contravention of their constitutional right to vote.
