—says application being prepared to strike out filing at High Court

AFTER a string of costly defeats in two local courts, the Forward Guyana Movement (FGM) is now preparing to challenge the legitimacy of the 2025 polls at the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), a move Attorney-General and Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall SC., has labelled a “colossal abuse of the process” and “hopelessly misconceived.”

Speaking during his weekly programme, Issues in the News, Nandlall confirmed that the Attorney-General’s Chambers is preparing to file an application to dismiss the petition challenging the validity of the September 1, 2025, General and Regional Elections.

“Our application will be filed as soon as possible and hopefully, we will get a hearing early to ventilate this legal proceeding,” Nandlall stated.

Earlier this month, the Court of Appeal unanimously dismissed an appeal brought by Krystal Fisher, a candidate of the FGM, against the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).

The appeal challenged the exclusion of her party from ballots in Regions Seven, Eight, and Nine in the recently concluded September 1, 2025, General and Regional Elections.

Days before the elections, Fisher, an elector residing in Region Nine and a candidate on FGM’s national top-up list, had challenged GECOM’s omission of her party from the ballots in the three constituencies.

The decision was delivered by Acting Chancellor of the Judiciary, Justice Roxane George, SC, who made it clear that the court found “no merit” in Fisher’s claims and reaffirmed the interpretation of the Representation of the People Act (ROPA) and the Constitution of Guyana applied by Chief Justice (ag) Navindra Singh in the High Court in August.

Dissatisfied with the Appeal Court’s judgement, the FGM went to the CCJ – Guyana’s final appellate court, but as pointed out by the court, the party failed to follow the required procedures, leading to the CCJ striking out the appeal.

Nandlall expressed frustration over the continued procedural missteps by the movement, noting that its leader, Amanza Walton-Desir, is herself an attorney-at-law.

A FLAWED PETITION

On October 14, in the name of Randolph Critchlow, FGM filed in the High Court an election petition, which challenges the validity of the September 1 elections.

According to the Attorney-General, however, the document fails to meet even the basic standards of an election petition.

“When you look at what an election petition looks like, it is not this,” Nandlall said. “They just titled it an election petition and think that makes it one. They have violated almost every rule and procedural requirement surrounding the preparation and filing of an election petition.”

He stressed that any flaw, whether in the form, content, or procedure, is fatal in such cases and cannot be rectified later.

“There are many rules governing how this has to be done, and all of them have been violated. The parties who ought to have been named were not even named. What I’m saying is that this petition is hopelessly misconceived and woefully deficient, and one can predict with almost virtual certainty that it will be dismissed,” the AG asserted.