— Attorney-General

THE draft proposed amendments of the Representation of the People Act (RoPA), one of the pieces of legislation which governs elections in Guyana, seeks to remedy the deficiencies of the present law, and to strengthen and make more transparent the country’s electoral machinery.

This was highlighted by Attorney-General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, S.C., while appearing on a National Communication Network (NCN) television programme on Tuesday evening.

The RoPA is an Act to make provision for the election of members of the National Assembly under a system of Proportional Representation and for purposes connected therewith. The draft proposed amendments of the Act are currently out for consultation, before being presented to the National Assembly for debate.

These draft proposed amendments are in keeping with the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) commitment to electoral reform against the backdrop of the five-month-long shenanigans which followed the March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections and saw a number of allegations of electoral fraud.

“What we witnessed there was Guyana’s electoral foundation, Guyana’s electoral edifice, Guyana’s electoral machinery – as ensconced and entrenched in the various statutory provisions and the Constitution, but in the main in the RoPA and the National Registration Act – being shaken, being attacked, to it’s very core,” Nandlall said.

He reminded that where gaps existed within the legal framework governing the electoral process and especially where there was discretion and latitude to interpret such legislation, the law was exploited during that five-month period, through a series of court action.

“Whatever weaknesses were in the law, they were exploited to their hilt. Wherever there was discretion, it was abused. Wherever there was latitude, interpretative latitude, it was vulgarised. Wherever there was an opportunity to bend the law to the repulsive end, it was exploited,” he said

The amendments of the Act, just one of the several pieces of legislation slated for amendment, are intended to address some of those exploitations, absurdities and vulgarities, which were revealed during the five-month period, the Attorney-General highlighted.

“We are duty-bound to ensure that whatever weaknesses we can identify, and whatever weaknesses we saw being exploited during that period, to take the necessary steps to rectify and remedy those deficiencies, and these amendments are largely designed to achieve that purpose,” Nandlall said.

While briefly touching on some of the main proposed amendments, Nandlall said they are all intended to strengthen the democratic process, make the process more transparent and to make the electoral machinery accountable.

One of the most pertinent issues which arose following polling day on March 2, 2020 was the tabulation of results which saw a number of irregularities, particularly with District Four, especially the tabulation of the results being stopped due to disagreements on how they ought to be tabulated and the unavailability of staff.

SUBDIVIDING
“District number Four is a special district in the electoral equation of our country. It is the most populated. It always has the greatest number of controversy so what we are proposing in these amendments, we are subdividing it,” Nandlall said.

The four proposed sub-districts are East Bank Demerara, East Coast Demerara, North Georgetown and South Georgetown, with each district to have its own staff, infrastructure, regulations and systems and procedures to operate as an electoral district by itself.

The amendments also seek to clarify how the tabulation is to be done, who are to be present during that process, what role they must play and when the tabulation process must begin.

Further, the amendments make explicit that the Statements of Poll (SoPs) must be used for the tabulation of the elections results, and as made available, those SoPs will be posted on the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) website. The SoPs must also be returned to the Chief Elections Officer and the Chairman of the Commission.

NO MORE
“The era of the spreadsheet and the bedsheet has come to an end,” Nandlall said, referencing the utilisation of a spreadsheet with numbers which did not correspond with those on the copies of SoPs of observers and agents of political parties, to tabulate the elections results at the office of the Returning Officer for Region Four.

“One hundred years ago when the law was drafted, we did not have Internet so nailing that statement of poll on a conspicuous part of the building that was used as a polling station was the publication of that result,” Nandlall said.

“All we are doing now is to get that done but using the technology advances and apparatus that are available, so no one can say we are introducing any new element into it, the idea behind the law was to make the results public as quickly as possible,” he added.

The amendments also address the issues of polling stations, whereby usually the CEO determined where polling stations are to be located, with no clear criteria to guide the exercise of discretion in relation to the number of polling stations within an electoral division, nor how many people are to be listed to vote at a particular polling station.

“Those issues have been clarified. We know what are the criteria that will be used to establish a polling station within a division, what factors you must take into account – you have to look at the number of voters likely to vote there and we have a number that we stipulated,” Nandlall said.

The drafters of the amendments have also taken into consideration that the environment of some communities may deter persons from other communities to want to vote there, and recommended persons vote within their own village, which will also minimise controversy.

The Attorney-General emphasised that great care and circumspection were employed when drafting the proposed amendments to ensure that the amended sections are not intended or designed to give any political party an electoral advantage, but only to make the electoral machinery stronger.

“The purpose of this is to strengthen the machinery to make our democratic process more durable, make our democratic machinery more impenetrable, to make it modern, to make it responsive and responsible, to make officers who are employed in the process accountable, to make their actions transparent,” Nandlall said.

He reminded that the process of strengthening the electoral machinery is a national one and urged civil society and citizens at large to get copies of the draft amendments to peruse and offer criticism and advice to further bridge existing gaps in the electoral process.