THE People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) has accused the opposition of acting in bad faith as it pertains to negotiations to select a chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).

This comes after the PPP rejected President David Granger’s nominees for the post. “The PPP appears to have rolled back from their offer that, in order to find a consensus, ‘the leader of the opposition is not averse to the President informally suggesting names in their proposed engagement for his consideration’,” Minister of Communities and PNC Treasurer, Ronald Bulkan, said on Friday, as he read from a press statement at the party’s weekly press briefing.

The government and the opposition have been in continuous negotiations which began on July 4, to ‘hammer out’ the process towards the selection of a new GECOM Chairman.

President Granger has to choose a GECOM Chairman from a list of six names submitted by the Leader of the Opposition, Bharrat Jagdeo. Following the high-level meeting on July 4, Jagdeo announced that while the Constitution stipulates that after consultation with opposition parties in the Parliament, he must submit a list of six names to the President, he is not against the President suggesting names of persons for the position.

“So the CCJ’s ruling did not change the Constitution, and the Constitution of Guyana says six names must originate from the leader of the opposition and it must be done only through consultation with the non-governmental political parties in parliament. We are prepared to consider names if the President were to suggest those names in an informal process that hopefully would start with a smaller team over the next couple of days,” the opposition leader had said.

The GECOM Chairman post became vacant following the resignation of Justice (Ret’d) James Patterson from the post last month, after the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) ruled that his appointment was flawed. Patterson was appointed to the post in October 2017, after 18 nominees submitted by the opposition leader, at that time, were found to be unacceptable to the President.

On July 8, 2019, the President submitted his list of eight names for suggestion to add to the deliberation as previously deemed acceptable by the opposition leader – of the eight two were shortlisted. Earlier this week it was indicated that Jagdeo had rejected President David Granger’s nominees, and has further nominated four more persons for the position as the “hammering out” process continues, in accordance with the advice of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).

“The two names previously suggested by the President did not find favour with the leader of the opposition,” a joint statement by the two leaders stated.

The names of the additional four nominees were not disclosed; neither were the names of the four that were found to be acceptable to the president. President Granger has indicated that four out of the five names shortlisted from an earlier list submitted on July 6 by Jagdeo were not unacceptable to him, and can be placed on the list that would be formally submitted to him.