NOT all of the sporting associations who are expected to cast their votes tomorrow believe that the Guyana Olympic Association (GOA) elections process, which provides for candidates to be nominated literally up to the last minute when contesting posts, is the best way to go.With the GOA elections set to take place tomorrow afternoon at the GOA’s new headquarters in Liliendaal, some of the Association heads are surprised that they have not be approached by anyone seeking to be nominated for a post in the GOA executive.
“That’s quite surprising that no one has contacted us, because you know there would always be persons who would be lobbying and things like that,” Guyana Boxing Association (GBA) president Steve Ninvalle said yesterday.
President of the Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG) Aubrey Hutson, also noted that he has not been approached by any candidate seeking to be nominated.

Not all of the 23 sporting Associations and Federations expected to participate were contacted yesterday. However, of those that were, they think that it would not be an altogether bad idea for the nominations deadline to be before the elections day.
Such a process would allow for the nominees to be vetted.
As it stands, any elector could nominate an eligible candidate at the elections, the nomination is then seconded and that candidate is considered among the others when voting begins.
“I thought it would have been very nice to know beforehand who and who will be running. At least you get a chance to talk about it in your associations,” commented Guyana Amateur Swimming Association (GASA) president Ivan Persuad, who will be voting at a GOA election for the first time.
“In swimming it’s very clear, one week before you have to send in your list of nominees so we can know how many persons are going up for president and so on, which I think is very clear and it gives people time to think about who they want to vote for.” He continued.
Persaud did, however, commend the fact that electors cast their votes by secret ballot, which allows each person to vote without having their votes scrutinised and perhaps being discriminated against because of how they voted.
As it pertains to this system of “on the floor nominations”, incumbent president K.A. Juman-Yassin said that if any Association so desired to have this system changed they can apply to do so. Yassin said as it is this is the system that he met when he took office and in all the years of elections no one has indicated that they would like it to change.
Like the Olympics, elections for the GOA are held every four years. Yassin has been president since 1996 when he took over from now deceased Justice Rudolph Harper.
On the issue of nominations, however, Yassin said that candidates have indeed been canvasing and he knows of several candidates seeking elections. He expressed that he preferred not to name the individuals.
But for the position of the presidency he maintained that he knew of no one else looking to contest the position, but would however welcome any competition and leave the rest up to the democratic process ingrained in the GOA’s constitution.