THE Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has met the ruling People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/C) twice in the last two weeks and once with the main Opposition, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU).The Guyana Chronicle was reliably informed that while the Alliance For Change (AFC) has not yet met with the Commission, the leaders of two other parties have contacted the Commission.
Lawyer and politician, Saphier Husain-Subedar, heads the National Independent Party (NIP). The NIP has been in existence for many years and contested the 1997 elections placing last with 258 votes amounting to 0.1 per cent.
Meanwhile, Vishnu Bandhu, leader of the United Republican Party (URP), is the other party leader that has contacted GECOM.
Both Husain-Subedar and Bandhu intend on contesting the upcoming May 11 General and Regional Elections.
GECOM’s long standing position on engagements with political parties has been one of an “open door” policy.

TOP PPP/C CONCERNS
Additionally, the Commission, at its second meeting with PPP/C, continued discussions on pertinent election issues, which started on Monday January 12.

The GECOM team at the meeting included Chairman of the Commission, Dr. Surujbally, as well as Commissioners Dr. Keshav Mangal, Mr. Vincent Alexander, Ms. Sandra Jones, Mr. Charles Corbin, Mr. Mohamood Shaw and Mr. Athmaram Mangar. Also present were the Chief Election Officer (CEO), Mr. Keith Lowenfield, Deputy Chief Election Officer, Mr. Vishnu Persaud, and the Commission’s Legal Officer, Ms. Juanita Barker.
The top issue addressed among several predetermined issues pertaining to preparations for and the conduct of impending General and Regional Elections, was party Agents being allowed to monitor all stages of packing, sealing and transporting of ballot boxes before Election Day and opening of the boxes on Election Day, by GECOM personnel.
GECOM gave its assurance that this will be done, making it clear that the involvement of Party Agents, as desired by political parties, is the standard operating procedure at GECOM.
The Chief Elections Officer pointed out that there will be no departure from this procedure in the upcoming elections, the CEO emphasized, adding that the Party Agents would have to be properly accredited, before they would be allowed to participate in the process.
The ruling party also expressed concern that the law authorises the Returning Officer for each of the 10 Electoral Districts to declare the results of the elections for his/her District and the CEO is not empowered to make changes to the declarations.
However, GECOM Chief Elections Officer also pointed out that the law also provides for the Returning Officers to consult on their relevant/respective tabulations with the CEO before making declarations. Accordingly, the CEO is vested with the responsibility to confirm that the tabulations before the respective declarations are made at the District level.

PROXY VOTING
The need to ensure that only those eligible to vote using proxies are allowed to do so was another area of concern.
The PPP expressed the concern that at the 2011 General and Regional Elections, proxies were issued for persons who did not meet the eligibility criteria as provided for in law. Representatives of the Party provided examples of such occurrences.
Consequently, the Party asked that GECOM review the procedure relative to treating with applications for proxies.
While advising that a few occurrences should not be interpreted as the norm, the Commission gave the undertaking to review the existing procedure with the view to developing an even more secure methodology to treat with applications for proxies.
The PPP team was led by its General Secretary, Clement Rohee and included Mr. Zulficar Mustapha, Mr. Ganga Persaud, Mr. Manzoor Nadir, Mr. Juan Edghill, Ms. Sheila Versammy and Mr. Devanand Ramdatt.

(Vanessa Narine)