THE Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) will not hire persons who do not satisfy their (GECOM’s) criteria, according to its Chairman, Dr Steve Surujbally.The assurance follows repeated concerns expressed by the General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), Clement Rohee, earlier this week.“The PPP urges qualified and competent persons desirous of safeguarding Guyana’s democracy to apply, so that suitably qualified persons are recruited to work on polling day. Further, the party over the last several months has made several calls on GECOM to ensure that its recruitment process is done in a transparent manner and that competent persons are employed,” he said.
CALL FOR PUBLIC VETTING
Rohee also reiterated the party’s call for public vetting of persons employed or who have applied to be employed to work on Election Day.
“Such an exercise will again justify the transparency of the process and enhance the confidence of the electorate in GECOM’s ability to deliver a free and fair election on May 11,” he said.
The PPP general secretary told the Guyana Chronicle that public vetting will also serve to assure many who may have witnessed deviations from established procedures in the conduct of General and Regional elections.
“There are a number of issues…the fact that there were officials who did not act in conformity with the rules and manuals is where the problem is,” he said.
Rohee pointed to two cases in particular – one, the issue where several ballot papers were deemed spoilt because they had not been stamped by GECOM officials at a Herstelling, East Bank Demerara, polling station.
“One can recall the Herstelling fiasco in the 2011 elections, where 19 ballot papers were given to 19 individual voters without the presiding or assistant presiding officer stamping them; this rendered the ballots rejected, thus denying the democratic rights of 19 hardworking Guyanese,” the PPP general secretary said.
The other issue he highlighted was the fact that some of the GECOM’s information clerks had misdirected voters to polling stations they were not slated to vote at, which in turn frustrated voters and caused them not to vote.
Rohee said: “The party is seriously concerned over the use of information clerks at polling places with more than one polling station. This is due to the bitter experiences of the 2011 elections and the confusion and frustration created by these information clerks, whether deliberate or not, the party is against the use of information clerks in the 2015 elections.”
He expressed the view that public vetting of E-Day staffers will address these concerns.
“Public vetting will fix the problems we had during the last elections, when it comes to the persons who were responsible… Guyanese must demand public knowledge of all polling day staff, since this should be of no secret to the populace,” he said.
GUIDED BY BEST PRACTICES
All things considered, the GECOM Chairman has assured that GECOM’s employment process will be guided by established employment best practices to ensure that the best candidates with the requisite knowledge, skills and experience are appointed to the various positions that are relevant to elections management.
Additionally, the Deputy Chief Elections Officer (DCEO), Vishnu Persaud, reiterated similar sentiments.
Asked about the PPP’s objections to information clerks, he said, “That [the existence of problems] might have been so, but it does not negate the merits of having information clerks. They do provide a valuable service. While there is a call for us not to have these clerks, there is a counter call to say we are not doing enough when it comes to this issue.”
The DCEO added that employees engaged by GECOM have been already vetted.
He said: “We have vetted our polling day staff. We sent out applications, people responded, we shortlisted them on the basis of the criteria we set out. We have trained them. We went through evaluations and on this basis, the levels of achievement, we will be selecting people to work in polling stations.”
Persaud added that the persons hired are also dispatched within their respective areas, where they are known to the voters in that particular area.
He expressed the view that public vetting of the Commission’s employees may be a counter-productive engagement.
“We have received calls from potential employees that say you publish our names we will not work,” the DCEO stated, adding that in this regard GECOM may find itself unable to fill the staff quota needed for the hosting of the May 11 General and Regional Elections.
“We are confident that the people we have appointed and will appoint are persons who are adequately trained and would have demonstrated competence,” Persaud said.
The Deputy Chief Elections Officer expressed confidence in the electoral process and in the Commission’s ability to conduct free and fair elections.