THE Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC), as of February 25, 2020, had officially written to a few political parties contesting the upcoming March 02 General and Regional Elections, citing them for public utterances, behaviours and advertisements deemed unhelpful to the process of promoting harmony and tolerance.

In a statement, the body said through its elections monitors, whom have so far monitored a high percentage of the public meetings of all the political parties, it has been observed that the use of ethnically-divisive language and the use of religion to disparage, racial and political profiling/stereotyping and disruption, were generally found to be used on various occasions.

From the numerous incidents flagged, twenty-one warranted official responses; eleven to Lt. Col. (Ret’d) Joseph Harmon, General Secretary of APNU (for both APNU+AFC) and eight to Bharrat Jagdeo, General Secretary of the PPP/C. In addition, two incidents are under active investigation.

The commission said too that through its Media Monitoring Unit, (MMU), it monitored the Facebook Pages of various news agencies, print media and television programmes. It was found that numerous persons made ethnically offensive comments under the posts made by the various news agencies. The commission, in response, cautioned those persons for making such comments and has called on the Editors-in-Chief of INEWS, Demerara Waves, HGP TV Nightly News and NCN News to stringently monitor their Facebook Pages so as to ensure ethnically-offensive comments are removed in a timely manner.

In addition, A New and United Guyana, (ANUG), has been written to regarding one of its advertisements that was deemed to be unhelpful to ongoing efforts to eliminate inherited racial stereotypes.

In all of the cases that necessitated a response, the commission reiterated the need for a more responsible approach by all parties and the need for collective effort to aid the process of fostering national harmony.

In January this year, the commission established a temporary Swift Response Committee, specifically mandated to review the findings of our elections monitors and the Media Monitoring Unit. To date, the Swift Response Committee dealt with thirty-four incidents.