THE last couple of days have been very significant ones in politics here as the nation prepares for national and regional elections.

The electoral commission has now activated its full machinery towards the conduct of national elections, which is its right, repeated ad nauseam, and which must be respected. Again, these steps, as a reminder, can only be taken by GECOM, in accordance with its constitutional dictates, before the President is informed.

However, there are those who are bent on a particular strategy which is inherently unfair, meant to pressure and hurry the Constitutional body into making short cuts towards its decisions. This, it is contended, must be highlighted, and warned against, more so given the revelations of fake birth certificates, and persons in possession of national identification cards and birth certificates issued in a certain hinterland region, without any source documents, and which trail lead to the office of a certain opposition party in the reported geographic location, as admitted by those found in possession of such dubious documents.

This particular incident fully vindicates government’s insistence as to the necessity of a House-to-House procedure which remains the surest way of ferreting out such electoral deviancies. These are, indeed, very serious matters which must be properly investigated, as indicated by both government and GECOM, in terms of ascertaining their prevalence, believed to have been taking place for some period, and in many regions. Such occurrences are criminal, deceptive, and fraudulent, and cannot assist GECOM in its mandate of preparing the nation for arguably its most important national elections within recent times, in the shortest time possible, along with a credible list. It cannot be the latter without the former, as seems to be the strange representation of such a clamour from the political quarters and its support clique. It has to be both together for the finished electoral product, which will uphold GECOM’s constitutional profile as a credible electoral body.

In an action that has been described as ‘unilateral’, but not, if one were to acknowledge the chairperson’s request for submissions from both sides of the Commission, and applying what could be seen as a procedure intended to avoid a deadlock in a balloting process, the chairperson as her right, resorted to her prerogative in an effort to move the process of preparations towards national and regional elections in the “shortest possible time.”
The decision by the Chairperson of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to mandate that the House-to-House registration process be ended, almost two months before its earlier announced date, brought to end a process of deliberations that had been intense, without a possible consensual decision in sight.

As would be expected by such a decision, unexpected, given the unprecedentedness of such a pre-election exercise ending before its stipulated time frame, there have been questions as to its wisdom, particularly on the key issue of the threat of disenfranchisement, not to forget also the question of removing the names of those who are not present in Guyana, in addition to deceased persons.

The issue, as pronounced on by the learned acting Chief Justice in a recent High Court ruling, is set to be challenged by the government. Notwithstanding such expected challenge, however, GECOM’S announced intention of a merger of the already existing list with the data from the recent procedure for the purpose of extracting a new list, in addition to an extensive period of claims and objections, is expected to arrive at a desired list for credible elections, a pronouncement which had been again emphasised when GECOM announced the decision of the Chairperson.

Thus, more than ever, GECOM must be allowed to continue its important and challenging task of the delivery of a credible voter’s list, in a national environment that is conducive to proper and beneficial decisions for the constitutional health of the nation, and not for the vested interest of a few.