…GECOM says party leaders could face law for unlawful declarations

The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has taken the decision to remove three candidates from the list of candidates contesting this year’s regional and general elections for holding dual citizenship while signatory to a Statutory Declaration Form.

These individuals are Presidential Candidate of the United Republican Party (URP), Dr. Vishnu Bandhu; Presidential Candidate of the People’s Republic Party(PRP), Dr. Valerie Leung and Candidate of the Liberty and Justice Party (LJP), Lennox Shuman.

“The lists were gazetted but the Commission’s decision was that Mr. Bandhu, Mr. Shuman and Ms. Leung, their names have to be taken off those lists because when they put their names there they were all dual citizens,” Commissioner Bibi Shadick told media operatives following Tuesday’s statutory meeting.

Article 155 of the Constitution of Guyana prohibits Members of Parliament from being dual citizens. Ahead of elections for the 65 seats in the National Assembly, candidates are mandated to sign a Statutory Declaration Form, declaring among other things, that they are not citizens of another state – a requirement set out by Article 155.

Though on Nomination Day -January 10, 2020- Bandhu had signed the Statutory Declaration Form while he was still a citizen of the U.S, he, in a letter, informed GECOM of his intentions to renounce his foreign status.

Unlike other small parties contesting the elections, the URP has been around for quite some time, founded in 1985 and launched in Guyana in 1987. In 1992 and 2015, the URP contested the General and Regional Elections but, according to Dr. Bandhu, the party only received 1,800 and 1,100 votes respectively.