THE Guyana Elections Commission’s (GECOM) collaboration with the Guyana National Youth Council (GNYC) is being questioned by the ruling People’s Progressive Party.“It is with great alarm that the People’s Progressive Party has learnt of the Guyana Elections Commission’s decision to collaborate with a self-anointed ‘Guyana National Youth Council’, to implement a programme aimed at bringing out more youths to the polls,” said PPP General Secretary, Clement Rohee.

GECOM’s engagement with GNYC was disclosed last Thursday after a meeting, and the body is expected to be working with the Commission to produce a number of strategic communication messages for dissemination countrywide.
Attending the meeting from GECOM were its Chairman Dr. Steve Surujbally, Deputy Chief Election Officer, Mr. Vishnu Persaud, Legal Officer, Ms. Juanita Barker and Public Relations Officer, Mr. Richard Francois.
The other attendees included Ms. Tiffany Daniels, Chair of GNYC, and Mr. Glen Bradbury, Chief of Party of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funded International Republican Institute (IRI) Guyana Leadership and Democracy Programme (LEAD) project.
The LEAD project itself was the subject of much controversy last year, with the Government expressing concerns in the manner in which it was being implemented.
Rohee premised the Party’s concern on two grounds: one, the fact that the organisation claiming to represent Guyana’s youth has no authority to do so; and, two, the decision to enter into a formal arrangement with a “partisan” body of youths or anybody for that matter must be a GECOM’s Commissioners decision.
“As far as the PPP is concerned this youth grouping – is a creature of external interference, through the LEAD Project and is nothing more than a group of partisan persons who are attempting to hijack the name ‘Guyana National Youth Council’,” Rohee said.
He added, “This matter was never discussed at the Commission level and those who are making such a claim are clearly over stepping their authority. The PPP rejects this outright interference and imposition on the electorate of Guyana.”
As such, the PPP General Secretary has issued a call to the GECOM Chairman to consult with the body’s Commissioners for a review and final determination of the matter.
“GECOM should collaborate only with legitimate and recognised organisations whose representation can be seen as bipartisan and in the interest of all Guyanese. The locus standi of the so-called Guyana National Youth Council is highly questionable,” Rohee said.
PART OF EDUCATION OUTREACH
Meanwhile, Dr. Surujbally told the Guyana Chronicle yesterday that the Commission’s engagement with the Council is in the interest of reaching to as many Guyanese youths as possible.
He said, “Where the Commission is concerned, it made a decision to go ahead full blast with its civic and voter education programme. It is being done in a strategic and comprehensive way.
“A part of this is civic and voter education is engagement of Guyanese youth….the political parties have all said that the youth will be playing a great role in this election and that it is important that youths turn out to vote. We have said that we support that.”
According to him, GECOM will engage the groups that approach the Commission, in the interest of advancing its civic and voter education programme.
“We will be in association with any group that we can support,” Dr. Surujbally stressed, adding that the bottom line is advancing knowledge of the election processes.
“What their name is, it is irrelevant. What is important is that they have a group together and they have indicated an interest,” he said.
The Commission, after last Thursday’s meeting, indicated that it is committed to helping the GNYC in any way it can to assist young people to make a conscious effort to vote on Elections Day, and to also highlight the very real consequences non-participation in the electoral process can have on their lives.
Additionally, the Commission’s Deputy Chief Elections Officer (DCEO), Mr. Vishnu Persaud, in an invited comment, explained that GECOM’s civic and voter education programme will be intensified closer to the May 11 General and Regional Elections.
Persaud reasoned that the messages of GECOM’s civic and voter education programme have a stronger chance of being retained if done closer to polling day.
Current efforts include placing notices in the daily newspapers; infomercials on radio and television stations; distributing flyers within the various regions, and deploying persons on public announcement systems within several communities.
(By Vanessa Narine)