COMMISSIONER of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Vincent Alexander has flayed the opposition-nominated commissioners for deliberately playing on the emotions of the electorate just days before E-Day regarding the reduction of the use of private residences as polling stations.

GECOM believes, in principle, that private residences ought not to be used unless unavoidable and in the recent past this decision had received the support of all on the commission.

It comes against the backdrop of the violent retaliation of citizens at previous General and Regional Elections when persons were convinced that ballot boxes at private residences were being compromised.

As a result of the volatile situation, the Carter Center — which is known for observing Guyana’s elections – urged the commission to make a special effort to reduce the number of private residences being used as polling stations.

Despite the fair counsel, opposition-nominated commissioners, in a press statement on Sunday, stated that they “reject the unilateral changes made by the CEO and his secretariat, to the Lists of Polling Places.”

The commissioners now claim that the removal of polling stations from some private residences to the use of tents which will be manned by GECOM officials is biased.
Professional tents which allow for privacy have long been used by the commission in the past to facilitate voting in areas where there are no public buildings.

The opposition-nominated commissioners also objected to the use of numerous polling stations at one public building and state that these actions combined are meant to disenfranchise People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) stronghold areas.

“It is apposite to note that most of the affected communities are predominantly PPP/C areas, and the political party is not unreasonably protesting the unilateral changes which were made without any consultation with us. This decision was made by the CEO in his own deliberate judgement, and for him to now claim that it was the commission’s decision not to use any private residences, is totally false. No such decision was made by the commission between the date we received the January, 2020 list and the publication of the lists in February, 2020,” the statement read.

Speaking with the newspaper on Sunday, government-nominated Commissioner Vincent Alexander said that the full commission had agreed on the matter and reiterated that decision just recently.

“The commission took a decision in principle that we will not use private residences. It means that decision has to be implemented by the administration, by the CEO. We accept that in some instances we may still have to use private residences because there’s no other alternative. The last thing we said in the committee is that the CEO must look to see how best he can implement the system; he is given the leverage to do it,” Alexander explained.
Meanwhile, Alexander said that the reason there appears to be a higher number of private residences being removed from areas the opposition-nominated commissioners have so deemed “predominantly PPP/C areas,” is because of the fact that more private residences are present there.

Giving an example utilising the commissioners’ reasoning, he said that in Sophia — which can be considered a stronghold of the coalition — from ‘A’ to ‘D’ Field, the community uses two schools to accommodate all of its polling stations.

“They don’t use any private residences. So you have thousands of persons going to two schools. [In other locations] there are situations where the community has eight private residences. What we have now done is to move those to a school,” Alexander explained.
Even GECOM Chair, Justice (ret’d) Claudette Singh had explained on Friday: “Those [private residences] have been reduced because they are using public buildings. It is not that the polling stations are removed from the area, it is just the private residences; they are moving away from those.”

However, the opposition-nominated commissioners are complaining about possible chaos or confusion.
“In an area like Foulis where in January 2020 nine private residences were listed together with one public place, there are now no private residences! All those polling stations are now to be located in tents on the “line top” and a playfield! In Mon Repos, a huge housing community, had listed on the January list seven private and seven public places for polling. There is [sic] now only two polling places, Mon Repos Nursery and Primary Schools, both in the same location,” the commissioners complained.

However, Alexander shut down the commissioners’ claims of possible confusion, stating that the limit per polling station remains between 400 — 450 and electors in other communities across Guyana have voted at polling places with multiple polling stations with ease in the past.

“We’ve done that in many places and we’ve had good elections. In Sophia we used two schools; in South Ruimveldt Park we used two schools. On Elections Day, they come, they line up. They have an opportunity before elections day to go and check to see where their name is listed; all the facilities are there to facilitate an orderly process, but people who are mischievous could cause confusion…it is all a mechanism of riling up the people. All of these things are ways of getting the people emotionally involved,” Alexander told this newspaper.

Earlier this month, Leader of the PPP/C, Bharrat Jagdeo, had been actively pushing the narrative on the campaign trail that if the upcoming elections do not put the PPP back in power, then it must have been tampered with through rigging.
In several letters to the media, persons pointed out that the party’s general-secretary is seemingly setting the stage to challenge the results of an elections result not in the party’s favour.

In the past, he has referred to staff of GECOM as “rogue,” stating that the institution is gradually losing credibility.
Meanwhile, this is not the first time that opposition-nominated commissioners have backed out of a unanimous decision.

Though the commission had unanimously agreed in 2018 that the house-to-house registration exercise was necessary for a credible List of Electors which led to budgetary provisions for such in the 2019 budget, they later turned on the national registration exercise as a ploy to disenfranchise Guyanese.
PPP/C leaders led their supporters to vehemently protest against the exercise, to which opposition-nominated commissioners had agreed.

Even so, many Guyanese have not forgotten the events of the 2015 General and Regional Elections which saw civil unrest flare in ‘C’ Field, Sophia, with the burning of vehicles outside the home of Pastor Narine Khublall — a staunch PPP/C supporter — when reports were spread that he was storing ballot boxes on his premises.

“The Carter Center recommends that GECOM take steps in future elections to ensure that citizens can cast their ballots in a neutral environment free from intimidation,” an Elections Observer Mission report from The Carter Center in 2015 had advised.
Weighing in on the issue on Friday, President David Granger said that in the past, the use of private residences had proven to be a challenge.

“Some of them were obscure, some of them were the houses of active political advocates and many persons, not associated with the administration at that time, were disenfranchised. I am very confident that it will not happen now. I am confident that the elections commission, which is in charge of elections, will make the right decision.”

While the opposition-nominated commissioners have demanded that the commission reverse the changes, Alexander said that he does not see the ‘baseless’ allegations hindering the established timeline towards elections on March 2, 2020.