…commissioners still sticking to need for new registration

AMID the political and legal fall-out following the court ruling on the no-confidence vote, the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has sought clarification from the Ministry of Finance on how funds will be appropriated for the holding of early General and Regional Elections.

Following a meeting of the commission on Tuesday, Commissioner Vincent Alexander said that there is still some level of uncertainty on how the commission should proceed in the present circumstances to fund elections, since almost $3 billion was allocated for house-to-house registration and the remainder of GECOM’s budget is for routine operations.

Minister of Finance Winston Jordan during presentation of the 2019 Budget in the National Assembly, announced that $5.4 billion was allocated to GECOM. Alexander said the commission is still in its exploratory stages and one area of exploration is what scope the commission has in terms of the fact that there is no money appropriated for elections, but registration instead. “We have sent for clarity from the Ministry of Finance and hopefully we can clear this up before the week is done,” said Alexander in an invited comment following a meeting of the GECOM commissioners on Tuesday. Another Commissioner, Charles Corbin, believes that there needs to be a new appropriation because of the conditions. Elections were initially scheduled for 2020.

Chief Justice Roxane George-Wiltshire in upholding the Speaker’s decision that the no- confidence motion was validly passed, said that Cabinet is separate from government and should resign. Her ruling has rendered it almost impossible for the GECOM to receive funding for the holding of new elections. Minister of Legal Affairs and Attorney General Basil Williams during the television programme ‘Facing the Nation’ last Friday, said: “The opposition has been saying that the government should only have a caretaker role, which would really be to pass legislation for funding of the elections; but I don’t know if they realise that if there’s no Cabinet then no financial bills can be taken to the Parliament.”

He referenced Article 171 (2) (ii) of the constitution which states: “Except on the recommendation or with the consent of the Cabinet signified by a minister, the Assembly shall not –– (a) proceed upon any Bill (including any amendment to a Bill) which, in the opinion of the person presiding, makes provision for any of the following purposes –– … for imposing any charge upon the Consolidated Fund or any other public fund of Guyana, or for altering any such charge otherwise than by reducing it…”

In preparation for the 2020 General and Regional Elections and ahead of the no-confidence vote, GECOM was allocated $3B through the 2019 budget for fresh house-to-house registration. The aim was to ensure that the current list would be in order for the 2020 elections by clearing it of dead persons, persons no longer residing in the country or a community and ensuring that those now eligible to vote are added to the list.

Since the CJ’s ruling, Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo has argued that the $3B registration sum could be used to facilitate the new election. At a previous press conference, he told media operatives that “parliament could legitimately convene”—and the opposition would attend– on the basis of passing new laws or supplementary provisions for GECOM.

However, Minister Williams pointed out the error in this deduction as such changes would require the involvement of Cabinet, the committee of senior ministers responsible for controlling government policy. “Of course, if there’s no Cabinet, then no financial bills can go to the Parliament for passage and therefore no funding could be sought for GECOM and for the holding of elections,” Williams added. “That’s a serious consequence of [the] ruling that Cabinet doesn’t exist.” Prior to the CJ’s ruling, Williams had submitted to the court that the government cannot operate without a Cabinet and that would be a “recipe for anarchy.”
WAY FORWARD

Meanwhile, in addition to funding, the commission is yet to decide on the way forward but, GECOM commissioners are scheduled to meet again today to continue discussions. “Tomorrow [today] we will continue what we have been discussing… We still have not dealt with the question of specific options in terms of when elections will be held… on the table right now is the question of claims and objections or house-to-house registration,” said Alexander.

He maintained that he would like the timetable for house-to-house registration to be reviewed, because the original timetable had provided for a shorter house-to-house period.
According to Alexander, the house-to-house exercise as programmed would have concluded around October. He believes that there will still be a claims-and-objections period, but they need house-to-house registration to sanitise the list. His belief was supported by Commissioner Corbin, who said that claims and objections alone are not a sanitisation of the list.

The legislation provides for two procedures to update the list which ends with the claims and objections; and Corbin believes that death has not been captured by a routine submission of the General Register Office (GRO). He signalled the need for the deficiencies to be addressed.

He said house-to-house registration is the only method by which the voters’ list could be cleansed of the dead and migrants. “The only procedure at the moment that we assure you standing up on solid ground for sanitisation is house-to-house. If there is another procedure, those proposals must come and I would say that once you come up with a procedure that is acceptable, we must have it anchored in legislation,” said Corbin.

PROGRESS
For their part, Commissioners Sase Gunraj and Bibi Shadick believe that they have been making progress, but there will still be discussions on the timeline, staffing and so forth. The GECOM secretariat had said it would need 148 days to put all necessary systems in place for the holding of General and Regional Elections, and though the clock is ticking, the commission has not given the secretariat the approval to go into operations mode.

According to Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield, the commission had asked the secretariat to determine (1) whether elections could be held within 90 days from December 21 as prescribed by the constitution; (2) whether the claims-and-objections period can be incorporated within the 90 days; (3) whether elections could be conducted before the Official List of Electors expires on April 30 and (4) to state the earliest possible time an election could be held if it cannot be facilitated within 90 days. Additionally, the secretariat was asked to explore the possibility of house-to house-registration.

The secretariat submitted its response on January 23, 2019, ahead of the commission’s January 24, 2019 meeting. More than 15 days after those options were submitted, the commission is still deliberating on them. However, it was noted that at this stage it is not possible for GECOM to facilitate General and Regional Elections by March 21 – the final day of the 90- day period.

In the plan of action presented to the commission, training of polling day staff accounts for 105 of the 148 days.