PRESIDENT Dr. Irfaan Ali has progressed one step closer towards achieving much-needed electoral reform for Guyana. At a virtual press conference on Friday, the Head of State announced that the draft electoral reform legislation has been crafted, and should be released to stakeholders by next week.

“Only yesterday [Thursday], I urged the Attorney-General, and what we’re working on is to have this draft legislation circulated sometime next week among all stakeholders,” President Ali said.

He told reporters that various stakeholders would be given a period of six weeks to review the document and provide feedback, so that the electoral reform efforts could be executed “expeditiously”.

Electoral reform has been promised by consecutive governments for years, however, the troubling events of the March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections highlighted the urgency with which Guyana’s elections laws need to be revised and reformed.

The destabilising period saw an attempt to tamper with the votes cast in favour of the then A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) government, which also played a part in employing what was described as a number of “delay tactics”.

This resulted in a five-month impasse, which was characterised by violence, protests, and the threat of international sanctions. It also saw the execution of a highly dramatic recount process.

By the end of the elections debacle, Guyana had experienced what was possibly the world’s longest elections process. In the end, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) was declared the winning party, having received 233,336 votes, while the APNU+AFC Coalition got 217,920. President Ali was later sworn in on August 2.

It was said that the months between March 2 and August 2, 2020 did not fail to test the patience and resilience of thousands of Guyanese voters who were also battling the damaging effects of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), which was first detected here in Guyana in March, and was almost immediately declared a pandemic.