GECOM commissioners complicit in assault on legitimacy of institution – CARICOM observers

In its scathing report upholding the integrity of the March 2nd general elections, the CARICOM observer team has castigated GECOM commissioners for undermining the legitimacy of the electoral body.

Without naming names, the report delivered to GECOM today said: “The public utterances of some GECOM Commissioners, political pundits and politicians may have sounded an ominous tone for the 2020 elections, with the partisan driven and distorted narrative on migrant voting, phantom voting, and implied voter impersonation. The recounting of the votes was conducted with as much precision as possible and with absolutely no hint of bias shown on the part of the GECOM station workers. Their impartiality with respect to the vote recount was outstanding.

“The Team was particularly alarmed by some if the imprudent remarks made by some Commissioners to the various media outlets which in our opinion added to the tense political environment in the country and which unfortunately provided the public with a view of the Commission that any independent body would wish to avoid. Additionally, the Team observed the antics of the political operatives from both within the Commission and from the political parties as they all attempted (traditional and new) to harness the media and their political capital for their own narrow and selfish political purposes. The constant references to irregularities made by GECOM Commissioners for instance could not but have a deleterious impact on the legitimacy of a body of which they were a part. GECOM Commissioners were therefore complicit in the assault on the legitimacy and independence of that institution. We noted the efforts as well as the attempts to encircle the CARICOM Team in the tomfoolery as part of the psychological warfare being waged”.

The government-appointed commissioners had made frequent allegations of irregualrities.

The report added: “Too often politicians on both sides of the political divide attempted to compromise the independence of the Commission as the only institution with constitutional and statutory power and responsibility to undertake and oversee matters related to elections. This tendency has to be contained so that the legitimacy of GECOM remains above board”.