THE A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) Government will respect the decision of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) when it decides on the timeframe for the conduct of General and Regional Elections, Director-General of the Ministry of the Presidency Joseph Harmon reinforced on Friday.

Though the commission has not agreed on a timeline by which credible elections could be held, the GECOM secretariat on Friday proposed that those elections could be held by March 2020.

“We have already said as a government and the parties in the coalition that we respect the decision of the elections commission, and we believe that the Chairman [sic] of the Commission, and her commissioners should be given every opportunity to do their work,” Harmon told media operatives at a time when the opposition continues to pressure GECOM to quickly decide on a timeline. The elections commission, chaired by Justice (Ret’d) Claudette Singh, will meet again on Tuesday to hammer out a decision on the way forward.
Thus far, the commission has taken a decision to shorten the period for house-to-house registration, and to merge the data from that national registration exercise with the National Register of Registrants Database. But before the merger takes place, the commission would be required to cross-match the fingerprints from both sets of data to prevent any duplication of persons within the system. The opposition, however, has since objected to the ‘merger.’

NO VIABLE ALTERNATIVE
Weighing in on the matter, the director-general said while the opposition has objected to the merger, to date, it has not put forward a viable alternative.
“What I can say to you is that I have heard no credible, practical and efficient alternative to what the elections commission is suggesting,” Harmon told reporters during a post-Cabinet press briefing at the Ministry of the Presidency.

Explaining that the merger will entail a cross-matching exercise before the Preliminary List of Electors is extracted, Harmon said the extended Claims and Objections period proposed by GECOM will allow eligible Guyanese, who were unable to register during the House-to-House Registration exercise, to do so. It will also allow the removal of persons who are now deceased or have migrated.

“It is the competence of the elections commission to determine their ability to be able to deal with this matter in a timely way,” he told reporters, while noting that the process suggested by the opposition People’s Progressive Party (PPP) would delay elections even further.
“I am saying that the competence lies in the elections commission and therefore it is our view that the elections commission should be given the time to do the work which they are paid to do,” he emphasised.

POSITION CLEAR
The director-general said President David Granger has long made it clear that he will dissolve Parliament and proclaim a date for elections when he is advised by the Guyana Elections Commission that all systems are in place to facilitate free, fair and credible elections. That position, Harmon told reporters, has not been changed.
The GECOM chairman, during her first meeting with President David Granger, had indicated that the commission would communicate its position to him soon. It was anticipated that, that position would have been communicated to the President following the August 15 meeting of the commission, but to date that has not be done.
The President has also assured the commission that his government will provide all necessary resources to facilitate credible, free and fair elections. Already, GECOM has been allocated close to $8B. As part of the National Budget for 2019, GECOM was allocated $5.546B – this sum, however, was supplemented with an additional $3.482B in May, 2019 after the commission indicated to the President that it lacked the financial resources to facilitate early elections.