THE Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM)on Monday indicated that it has plans in place to advance an awareness and sensitisation programme for the electorate, ahead of impending general and regional elections.

The assurance follows a call from the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) General Secretary, Clement Rohee, earlier in the week.
“As we approach another General and Regional Elections, which must be free and fair, the PPP will work hard to ensure that notwithstanding the social and political repercussions and reverberations, which are bound to emerge from the internal wrangling and disagreements within the ranks of the political opposition,” he said.

STRUGGLE FOR STABILITY
According to him, the Party is prepared, as it has always been, to struggle for the maintenance of political stability and for the constant improvement in the wellbeing of all Guyanese.

“Guyana’s national democracy will continue to grow from strength to strength with the working people always at the centre of the exciting journey ahead of us as we work uncompromisingly towards another PPP/C victory at the Polls,” he declared confidently.
Rohee underscored the ruling party’s track record and stressed that there have been significant strides in the social and economic sectors of our country’s development.
“(This is seen) especially when contrasted against the broken down, ramshackle, bankrupt economy and social and physical infrastructure inherited by the PPP/C on assumption to office in 1992,” he said.
The PPP General Secretary bemoaned the “vapid bleating’s and feline purring’s of the Opposition” about corruption, lack of transparency and accountability, absence of democratic governance at the executive and parliamentary levels.
“This pales into significance when matched against the strides made in the social and economic sectors of our country’s development,” he stressed, adding that the link between development, on all fronts, and transparency and accountability is recognised by the party.
Rohee also assured that his party will continue to “stay the course” for the wellbeing of all Guyanese and, by extension, Guyana.

IMPENDING ELECTIONS
Additionally, an announcement from President Donald Ramotar on a date for general and regional elections is expected to be made soon.

President Ramotar in early December ended the wait of the Guyanese people with the much-anticipated announcement on the way forward to bring an end to the current political impasse – a move to early general and regional elections.
A move by the President to set a date will have a bearing on several processes. Once a date is set, it will translate to the dissolution of Parliament, which currently still stands suspended under the November prorogation proclamation.
Political parties will then kick into campaign mode. And once a proclamation announcing a date is made by the President to go to general and regional elections, GECOM will have its timelines with which to work.
The Head of State, like the party’s General Secretary, expressed confidence in his party regaining the parliamentary majority it lost in the 2011 general and regional elections by one seat. At the last elections, the combined Opposition gained control of the National Assembly by a one-seat majority in a 33-32 split.
The last general and regional elections were held in November 2011.