…as Jagdeo accused of shifting the goalpost
…Western diplomats urge adherence to CCJ ruling

PRESIDENT David Granger and the Leader of the Opposition, Bharrat Jagdeo, are scheduled to meet shortly to discuss the nominees for the position of Chairman of Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).

According to a source, the date for the meeting has been set, and it is now a matter of deciding on the time. The two leaders last met on Thursday July 4, 2019 – a meeting which resulted in them agreeing to have their technical teams meet to “hammer out” the six names, but those meetings came to a halt after the Opposition’s team shifted the goalpost, and declined to consider any of the president’s nominees. On Monday, the United States of America Ambassador to Guyana, Ambassador Sarah-Ann Lynch; United Kingdom High Commissioner to Guyana, H.E. Greg Quinn; and the Head of Delegation of the European Union to Guyana, Ambassador Jernej Videti? issued a joint statement calling for the constitutional players to abide by the declarations of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) in the appointment of a new Chairman of the Elections Commission and in the conduct of elections.

“The Caribbean Court of Justice – Guyana’s Supreme Court – has spoken. It is important for the rule of law that all invoked actors abide by its ruling and the relevant provisions of the Constitution. We urge everyone to do so expeditiously,” the ABEU implored.
Ahead of the upcoming meeting, President Granger shortlisted two names from the list of eight he had earlier submitted, through the Director General of the Ministry of the Presidency Joseph Harmon, to the Opposition Leader for his consideration. The President’s nominees are Attorney-at-Law Kesaundra Alves and Justice (Ret’d) Claudette La Bennett.
Last Friday, President Granger expressed a willingness to appoint a Chairman of the Elections Commission by Monday July 15, if the Opposition Leader acted in a consensual manner and in good faith. But to date, the Opposition Leader has been sending mixed signals on the nominees proposed by him and the president. In a letter addressed to the Director General on July 13, the Opposition Leader’s Chief Negotiator Gail Teixeira, on his behalf, acknowledged the two nominees proposed by the President, but on Monday he told reporters that he will not only consider those two names but the other six names submitted by the President.

“I’ll take it in good faith that he (the President) submitted eight names and I thought that all eight were not unacceptable or acceptable to him,” he told reporters, while emphasising that he will consider all the names submitted by the President and not the two shortlisted.
Added to that, the Opposition Leader has reportedly sought to misrepresent what the teams of negotiators from both the Government and the Opposition had agreed to during a “hammering out” process last week. The teams met three times, and had shortlisted 13 names from a total of 19 submitted prior to their engagement. From that 13, five names were shortlisted from a list proposed by the Opposition Leader and the remaining eight were proposed by the President.

However, in the letter to the Director General, Teixeira wrote: “As a result, the Leader of the Opposition is seeking clarification with regards to the status of the six names that were ‘shortlisted’ during the three meetings between the representatives of the President and himself. Are these six names deemed ‘not acceptable’ or are they considered ‘unacceptable’ to the President?”

Based on the letter to Harmon, the Opposition Leader included on its list of six, at least one person that the Government’s representatives had rejected last week on behalf of the President. When questioned about the rejected name or names, the Opposition Leader said it did not matter where his nominees at this stage are five or six. For him, it is minute. “Whether five or six are acceptable to the president it is immaterial. We just needed to get clarity on those six,” Jagdeo said while claiming that the President’s team led by Harmon had shortlisted a list, and that list does not reflect the position of his team. This, however, is contrary to the statements of his chief negotiator, who, at the end of the last meeting, said the Opposition had no issue with the six rejected nominees from the Opposition Leader’s list of 11.

He later told reporters that he was not confined to the 11 names that were shortlisted to five. “Remember we were not confined to the 11 names that was the first round. The first round was that we resubmit the names of those who agreed to have their names resubmitted, we go through that, and assuming that we had come up with four or five, then we could go through another round of more names, until we have a list of seven or eight names from which I could choose,” Jagdeo said.

However, Jagdeo’s position contradicts the recommendations of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) when it ruled on the appointment of Justice (Ret’d) James Patterson. The CCJ has advised that the President and the Opposition Leader arrive at a consensual list of six during a process of consultation before the formal submission is made by the Opposition Leader to the President in accordance with the Constitution. In delivering the landmark judgment on June 18, 2019, President of the CCJ, Justice Adrian Saunders said the President and the Opposition Leader ought to have met prior to the submission of the list and consulted on names.

It was explained that consultation between the President and the Opposition Leader would have allowed for consensus and submission of a list of six persons who would have reached the eligibility requirements. Paragraph 26 of the ruling states: “The Court decided that the most sensible approach to operationalising the Article was for the Leader of the Opposition and the President to communicate with each other in good faith and perhaps even meet to discuss, eligible candidates for the position of Chairman before a list is formally submitted. The aim of these discussions must be to agree (to) the names of six persons who fit the stated eligibility requirements and who are not unacceptable to the President.”