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The Guyana Elections Com-mission (GECOM) needs to inform the public about the issues that ought to be addressed in relation to the upcoming elections, the Alliance For Change (AFC) said.
At a press conference held at its Cummings Street headquarters on Wednesday, the AFC said GECOM needs to reveal the process by which an acceptable list of electors would be compiled for the elections and how, when and through what process recruitment and training of the some 15,000 electoral officials needed for the conduct of elections would be accomplished.
The press conference, according to AFC Vice-Chairman Sheila Holder, was the first in what is expected to be a regular feature for the party.
The AFC said GECOM needs to say how and when the 2,000-odd polling places, adequately provisioned with sanitary facilities and electricity would be identified; when and through what procedure the printing and placement of the Preliminary Voters List (PVL) for the distribution around the country would be done; and what tested system is in place for communicating results of the elections in the various divisions within a reasonable time (by the end of polling) given the collapse of the cellular phone system in the last elections and the protests, confusion and violence that ensued when announcement of the elections results was extensively delayed.
GECOM also needs to say what options it is considering to deal with the various forms of multi-registrants if these are found at the conclusion of the Jamaican Biometrics System, which has been employed for that purpose. It also needs to say when, how and where ballots would be printed for the elections.
AFC Leader, Khemraj Ramjattan, said GECOM is not doing the best of jobs as regards these issues and needs to be more forthcoming to give the electorate some confidence in the process.
GECOM has since advised President Bharrat Jagdeo that elections will not be possible until after August 30, 2006. The constitutional deadline is August 4.
The AFC also suggested that GECOM and its secretariat, under the control of the Chief Election Officer, ensure that on elections day every voter would be able to cast a secret ballot in circumstances free from fear and intimidation. The party also called for respect for the meaning of Article 161B of the Constitution, which limits the role of political parties and their nominees in the conduct of elections, and which specifically precludes them from any form of active management of the electoral process. GECOM should uphold firmly the principle of equality among political parties, which must of necessity mean the dismissal of the categorisation being peddled in some quarters and which seeks to differentiate between parliamentary parties and non-parliamentary parties as if the former possessed more entitlements than the latter in an elections race, the AFC said.
Elections must be delivered under the principle of 'one man, one vote', the party said, since GECOM must ensure that disenfranchisement of eligible voters is a thing of the past and that there is no multiple voting or potential for stuffing of ballot boxes after the close of poll.
With regard to a delay in the holding of the elections, AFC Chairman and presidential candidate Raphael Trotman said the party would not mind if there was a reasonable delay of probably three to four months but it did not want there to be a caretaker government in the interim.
Speaking of the code of conduct for political parties and candidates, which the AFC drafted and invited other political parties to sign on to Trotman said they were disappointed at the negative response of the other political parties. He said the AFC had sent copies of the code to all the political parties and was surprised that some parties said that they had not seen it. Unofficial discussions were also held on the code as well. However, he said, the AFC would abide by the code and the party was also prepared to sign onto any prepared by GECOM, the Inter-Religious Organisation or others once it was in keeping with best practices. Ramjattan was of the view that the other political parties were not appreciative of the code because they felt "the AFC had stolen their thunder."
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