THE Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has clarified that months of gridlock over scrutineers, commissioner appointments and Local Government Election planning all trace back to the fact that WIN and A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) have never settled who truly speaks for Guyana’s opposition.
At issue is a list of scrutineers that Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed, head of the We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) party, submitted to Chief Election Officer Vishnu Persaud on June 3.
GECOM’s statement confirms it is currently paying 69 scrutineers, all appointed by APNU+AFC under a long-running arrangement, and that none represent WIN.
But the Commission insists that that fact alone is not a ruling against WIN, as the real obstacle is that Persaud has no legal power to swap in Mohamed’s list on his own authority.
That limit flows from Section 7A of the Representation of the People Act, inserted by amendment in 2022, which states that the Chief Election Officer “shall, notwithstanding anything in any written law, be subject to the direction and control of the Commission.”
Given that only the full seven-member Commission can approve a new scrutineer arrangement, and because APNU formally objected to Mohamed’s list, disputing whether the “meaningful consultation” required by Section 33D(2) of the same Act had actually taken place, Persaud told Mohamed on June 5, and again on June 10, that he had no authority to referee the disagreement himself.
Both sides’ correspondence have simply been placed on GECOM’s official record, pending a Commission ruling.
GECOM was most emphatic that this is not a finding against WIN, as it has neither determined whether Mohamed’s consultation process was inadequate, nor that WIN is excluded from scrutineer representation.
The scrutineer’s dispute is really a symptom of a larger standoff that has left GECOM unable to act on almost anything requiring a full sitting.
When Guyanese voters went to the polls on September 1, 2025, WIN won 16 of the 65 National Assembly seats, and pushed the long-dominant APNU into third place with 12. The governing People’s Progressive Party/Civic secured 34 seats.
Mohamed had called for the resignation of sitting Opposition-nominated Commissioners Vincent Alexander, Charles Corbin, and Desmond Trotman, but none had agreed to step aside.
Mohamed called publicly for their resignation within days of taking office, and in a June letter to APNU chairman Aubrey Norton, he named lawyers he was considering advising the president to appoint in their place.
Norton and the sitting commissioners have refused, arguing that not only does no such vacancy exists, but that the Constitution’s security-of-tenure protections exist precisely to keep GECOM’s composition insulated from shifting party fortunes, not to be reshuffled every time an election changes the opposition pecking order.
GECOM Chairperson, retired Justice Claudette Singh, said in May that the Commission cannot move forward on its work, including Local Government Election preparations, until the opposition seats are resolved.
On this dispute, too, GECOM says its hands are tied. The statement stresses that the Commission has “no locus standi” over who the Leader of the Opposition nominates to fill its own seats, since that process runs through Article 161(3)(b) of the Constitution, and is a matter for the President and the Leader of the Opposition alone.
The paralysis carries real consequences. GECOM’s Secretariat said it has already drawn up a full workplan for Local Government Elections, expected later this year, but the Commission’s own statement concedes the plan “cannot independently activate” itself, as it needs a decision from the very body that has not convened in nearly a year.
Earlier this month, the Carter Center, which has monitored Guyanese elections for decades, called the impasse a matter of “considerable concern” and warned that without a fully functioning Commission, GECOM risks missing its statutory deadline for local polls and running out of time to implement reforms before the next general election.
The WIN-APNU rift has spread far past the Commission’s boardroom. Just days before GECOM’s statement, Mohamed used his authority as Opposition Leader to name WIN and Forward Guyana Movement representatives to the new Local Government Commission, pointedly leaving out APNU’s nominees.
Norton responded in sections of the media by saying he was open to meeting Mohamed to discuss the snub, but only at a “neutral” venue, echoing the same condition GECOM’s opposition-nominated commissioners set back in February, when they declined to meet Mohamed at WIN’s own headquarters.
GECOM has maintained that it is following the law, not obstructing it, by declining to act outside its authority, and every disputed matter, from scrutineers to commissioners to the local election workplan, is waiting on a Commission that cannot function until WIN and APNU, or ultimately the courts, decide who leads Guyana’s opposition.
GECOM said it remains committed to transparency and to running elections that reflect Guyana’s current political reality.
