COMMISSIONER representing the coalition government on the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Vincent Alexander has flayed his colleagues from the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) for statements on the commission he deems to be hypocritical.

The commissioners representing the PPP have failed in an attempt to block GECOM’s move to strike out an elections petition the party has filed
The PPP has accused GECOM of refusing to submit itself to public scrutiny by way of the court. PPP member Mr Ganga Persaud had filed a petition to declare that the May 11 elections were not free and fair and severely flawed. He also asked the court to order a recount of the ballots cast at the elections.
GECOM Chief Executive Officer Keith Lowenfield in an affidavit had said that the statements in Persaud’s petition were inadequate to establish a case.
In a new twist, Mr Alexander via his letter labelled recent comments by Robeson Benn, Bibi Shadick and Sase Gunraj, the commissioners representing the PPP as “concocted, conflictual and hypocritical.”
The commissioners claim that the move by GECOM Chairman Dr Steve Surujbally to cast a vote against the motion filed just after the PPP lost the May 11 National and Regional Elections, goes in consort with efforts that showcase those elections as lacking credibility.
At a party press conference on Saturday, Commissioner Benn said the move by the GECOM Chairman to vote against the petition suggests that the Elections Commission has something to hide and is fearful of public scrutiny by way of a court process and therefore is not in a position to deliver free, fair and transparent elections to the people of Guyana.
“Further, the studied refusal by GECOM to provide any report on the conduct and results of the May 2015 elections is of great concern and undermines the commission’s ability to make recommendations and changes which will positively impact on the conduct of future elections,” Mr Benn told reporters on Saturday.
But Mr Alexander in his Letter to the Editor said GECOM’s records will prove that “it has no history of requiring the Chief Elections Officer (CEO) to seek guidance on the construct of any case, once the initial go ahead had been given to respond to any motion brought against it.”
He explained that once retained, GECOM relied on counsel to determine its response based on the “material facts availed to Counsel”. The case, Mr Alexander noted, was built purely on those facts related to legal provisions and arguments.
“It can be no less than conspiratorial for commissioners to want to play the role of counsel and more than that deny the CEO the means of responding that the justice system avails to him. It is even more glaring that two practising lawyers would propose such a non-law approach to legal matters,” the GECOM commissioner added.
The issues now surfacing, he said, were never of concern to GECOM when “the beneficiaries of GECOM’s response were those who are now the petitioner.”

CONFLICT OF INTEREST
What he finds to be a conflict of interest is the fact that two of the commissioners “who are seeking to determine GECOM’s course of action are members of the list which is bringing the petition.” One of the Commissioners Mr Alexander said is an originator of the petition but withdrew after he became a commissioner.
“There is a clear conflict of interest. How can one be party and have an interest in the petition and want at the same time to determine the response? This would be the perpetration of crass conflict and a conspiracy to disable the respondent,” the commissioner noted.
A sorer point for Mr Alexander, however, was the fact that in 2006, GECOM’s then Chief Elections Officer Gocool Boodoo had admitted to the Alliance For Change (AFC) that a seat in Linden was wrongly allocated to the PPP and he committed to the wrong being corrected.
Mr Boodhoo, notwithstanding what he said to the AFC, announced to the nation the incorrect result knowingly and subsequently advised the AFC that their only recourse was the court.
“This wrongdoing was further perpetuated when GECOM, through its counsel, used technical grounds, founded on the manner in which the matter was filed, to have the case quashed. Now arrive Benn, Shadick and Gunraj to accuse GECOM of the immorality of not exposing itself to the scrutiny of the court in a circumstance where GECOM has not employed deception as was the case in 2006,” said Mr Alexander who has served as commissioner since 2007.
He added: “Surujbally was untouchable in 2006 when he allowed the counsel and the law their course even in the face of deception. Now that he once again agrees to allow counsel and the law their course, he is declared an enemy of the State, transparency and democracy although there has been no admission of wrongdoing by GECOM.”

GRANDSTANDING
Mr Alexander believes that at the end of the PPP’s commissioners grandstanding it is for the justice system to provide the “avenues for motions, responses and determinations” as is mandated by the Constitution.
“Concoction, conflict and hypocrisy cannot be condoned in the search for justice and the building of democracy,” said Mr Alexander, who is the longest-serving commissioner on GECOM.
The three Commissioners representing the PPP on GECOM have also raised publicly their party’s discomfort and lack of confidence in GECOM when it comes to the level of preparedness of the Commission for the hosting of Local Government Elections in March 2016, and the need for more public education on local government elections to be done.
“On the question of the preparedness, I will not comment. I will lend my effort to GECOM being prepared and allow history to determine the correctness of the Benn, Shadick and Gunraj contention,” Mr Alexander said in his letter.
On the question of education on the local government system, however, he agreed stating that “there is need for much more public education,” a view he held for several years when the PPP government overruled the Local Government Task Force’s unanimous decision to commence public education with assistance from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).
Over the years, Mr Alexander said he saw two issues he described as “negative phenomena” raising their “ugly heads” on occasions at GECOM — the removal of commissioners or attempts to remove commissioners with no explanation to the electorate whose votes the commission is ultimately intended to guarantee and protect; and political grandstanding by some commissioners.