WITH local government elections (LGE) slated to be held before the end of 2022, the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) is mindful of the potential for ethnically-divisive comments in the run-up to poll day, and remains confident in its capacity to intervene in, and mitigate, those issues when they arise.

In its 2020 report presented to the National Assembly recently, the ERC said it expected an uptick in these types of comments on social media, leading up to the highly-anticipated elections.

It should be noted, however, that at the time of this report, local government elections were expected to be held early in 2021, or latest in December 2021.

Given the circumstances at the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) including the removal of the former Chief Elections Officer (CEO) and Deputy Chief Elections Officer (DCEO) due to alleged elections fraud-related criminal matters, local government elections were effectively delayed until those positions were filled.

On Tuesday, newly-appointed Chief Elections Officer, Vishnu Persaud, was sworn in, paving the way for the holding of local government elections.

Recently, Minister of Local Government and Regional Development, Nigel Dharamlall, issued an order extending the ‘life’ of all elected local government officials.

The Minister’s Order followed communication between Attorney-General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, and GECOM Chairman, Justice (Ret’d) Claudette Singh on the elections commission’s readiness to facilitate LGE. Chairman Singh said the commission was not ready.

Considering this delay in the holding of local government elections, the expectation by the ERC that these elections would have been held soon after 2020’s General and Regional Elections (GRE) was unmet.

The ERC said in its 2020 report: “…the [Media Monitoring Unit] MMU pessimistically predicts that because the LGE is coming so quickly on the heels of GRE, the same ethnically divisive environment that obtained during those elections will continue into the LGE version”.

The report stated the country has not yet fully recovered from the effects of the ethnic disharmony that was created during the 2020 GRE.

The MMU, under the ERC, is responsible for monitoring the official websites and Facebook pages of local media houses and political parties of Guyana. The ERC, however, noted that it hopes its predictions are wrong.

The ERC report credited the Elections Monitoring Programme (EMP), which it said was effective during the 2020 GRE and is expected to do the same during local government elections.