REFUSING to heed calls for him to submit a fresh list of nominees for the post of chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission, Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo on Friday tried to whip up support at a public forum at the Umana Yana for his picks to be accepted.
Delivering the main address to an audience packed with PPP supporters, Jagdeo said many people have called him and expressed two opinions. Firstly, he said the President is receiving bad advice from Attorney General Basil Williams and secondly, many are of the view that the President intends to break with democratic tradition and appoint a GECOM Chairman using obscure legal arguments. “They want to appoint a chairman sympathetic to the PNC that will upset the balance at GECOM that will convert GECOM into a tool of the PNC with the aim of rigging the elections,” Jagdeo charged.
He said if the first view is the dominant one, then it is obvious that Williams continues to give bad legal advice to the President. The President and Williams’s view has been supported by a retired judge of the Caribbean Court of Justice, Duke Pollard, and several other legal minds. Jagdeo had named Ryhaan Shah, a controversial Indian rights activist; Professor James Rose, a PPP candidate; Lawrence Lachmansingh, a Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Consultant; business executive, Ramesh Dookhoo; former Chairman of the Private Sector Commission, Norman McLean; and Chartered Accountant, Christopher Ram as his nominees, but those names were all rejected by President Granger.
Describing the list as “unacceptable,” President Granger has since explained that the six nominees are not qualified, according to the constitutional requirements. According to Section 2 of Article 161, “The Chairman of the Elections Commission shall be a person who holds or who has held office as a judge of a court having unlimited jurisdiction in civil and criminal matters in some part of the Commonwealth, or a court having jurisdiction in appeals from any such court, or who is qualified to be appointed as any judge, or any other fit and proper person, to be appointed by the President from a list of six persons, not unacceptable to the President, submitted by the Leader of the Opposition after meaningful consultation with the non-governmental political parties represented in the National Assembly.”
Since then, there has been an outpouring of support for President Granger’s decision to reject the list and overwhelming calls for a new list to be resubmitted. In a missive, retired Judge of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), Duke Pollard, said that the President’s decision to reject the list was well founded, noting that the intent of Article 161 (2) of the Constitution is to “secure impartiality and even-handedness in the appointment of the Chairman of GECOM.
“The employment of the pronoun “other” speaks volumes and must be interpreted to mean that such “other fit and proper person” must possess the characteristics of the two-named preceding persons. In effect, such person must possess the generally accepted distinctive characteristics of a judge, namely, autonomy of decision-making, considerable jurisdictional reach, impartiality, integrity and the disposition to act judicially,” Justice Pollard said, as he cleared the air on whether an individual who is not a judge can be appointed Chairman of GECOM.
In assessment of the qualifications of the six nominees, Justice Pollard posited that “The list submitted is palpably defective in omitting persons qualified as judges or possessing requisite qualifications to be appointed as such.”
President Granger has since suggested to Jagdeo that he pick someone to meet with Williams to clarify the interpretation of Article 16 (2) of Guyana’s Constitution that spells out the requirements for nominees.
However, Jagdeo said the PPP wanted a meeting with the President instead of the AG to file a complaint pertaining to the bad legal advice being dispensed by Williams. “No amount of legal arguments, as strong as they are, will change his opinion, because he will not be swayed by legal arguments; his intent is to get a partisan chairman, and no amount of pointing out the history will change anything, since he is hell-bent on having his way,” Jagdeo said.
He said the party plans to attend the meeting with the Attorney General where arguments will be presented. “It’s a nightmare to talk to Basil Williams, but we will do it and after that we will continue to engage and I am very conscious that I am central in this process,” Jagdeo said. The opposition leader said he is prepared to engage in a meaningful way to fulfil his constitutional duties. Jagdeo said that with the advent of social media, the Government cannot get away with many of the things that they would like to hide, adding that what the government does affects all of society and not PPP supporters alone.