July 8, 2022
For Immediate Release
PRESS STATEMENT
The Alliance For Change is extremely concerned about the operations of GECOM and its readiness to organize and execute Local Government Elections in particular and after that General and Regional Elections.
There are a couple of issues I would like to raise that are of concern to us. In the first instance the operations of GECOM and the refusal to review the operations considering March 2, 2020, General and Regional Elections, we find very, very worrisome.
With some of the issues, we would have engaged during that period one would think we would have wanted to review some of the systems we would have had in place.
I wish to state that it was the duty of GECOM to look at a lot of issues during that Recount process and some of the Observation Reports revealed are grave issues in and of themselves.
The system spoke to "ballots cast at the said elections, including the reconciliation of the ballots issued with the ballots cast, destroyed, spoiled, stamped, and as deemed necessary, their counterfoils/stubs…" and that gamut of issues in and of themselves.
Then we’ve had some issues with the Voters’ List, a list that we consider very sacrosanct to those elections and achieving the will of the people as a result of any electoral process.
We wish to remind Guyanese that it was the Chairman of GECOM, the Honorable Claudette Singh, who would have written to the General Registrar’s Office (GRO) asking that a list of named persons who would have been deceased on March 2, 2020, when those elections were conducted, and the response came that there was substantial evidence that they were.
In addition to that, the Chairman of GECOM would have written to the Chief Immigration Officer about persons who were out of the jurisdiction and again the response was very substantive by way of the issues raised in the letter by the GECOM Chairman.
The point to be made here is that there were a lot of question marks over the operations of GECOM and its ability to correct course. We had, too, incidences at the GECOM Hadfield Street
office. And if you look closely at the events which transpired there, they almost resemble the January 6, 2021, Insurrection at the US State Capitol.
These are all issues we believe should come under a microscope as GECOM reviews its own systems, and its own checks and balances. Additionally, there is a police report available online where a staff of GECOM would have taken equipment, critical to the final results, outside of GECOM, before those elections were completed.
What is very important to us here is very open, free, and fair elections.
Additionally, in that process of the last elections, we had with us the "most legitimate interlocutors", the CARICOM scrutinizing team. In their report on the electoral process, they urged a rethinking of the process.
In their Report, the team insisted, "To maintain GECOM in its present form would be a tragedy for the nation and the people of Guyana." In the Summary of Recommendations, the team urged GECOM, "Revisit its electoral governance system and in particular its primary institution that of GECOM on the basis of its less than stellar performance".
Finally, and again, the Alliance For Change believes that any future election in Guyana MUST
first begin with a clean, sanitized Voters’ List.
#END
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