{"id":9520,"date":"2025-01-23T20:49:44","date_gmt":"2025-01-24T01:49:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/?p=9520"},"modified":"2025-01-23T20:49:44","modified_gmt":"2025-01-24T01:49:44","slug":"23-january-2025-2049","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/?p=9520","title":{"rendered":"23 January, 2025 20:49"},"content":{"rendered":"

January 23, 2025<\/p>\n

Georgetown, Guyana
\nFor immediate release to all media houses<\/p>\n

PRESS RELEASE<\/strong><\/p>\n

AFC Exposes GECOM\u2019s Disarray in Lead Up to Elections<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today, the Alliance For Change (AFC) engaged in a critical meeting with GECOM to advocate for necessary reforms to ensure a free and fair electoral process. Our straightforward, common-sense proposals included the implementation of biometric voting, the clean-up of the voters’ list, and transparent election practices.<\/p>\n

To our astonishment, the Commissioners were unable to provide clear, logical responses to our concerns, exposing deep divisions within GECOM. This lack of professionalism and preparedness was evident as they scrambled to justify their inability to accommodate our irrefutable demands for fairness. Instead of presenting sound counter arguments, they descended into internal bickering, revealing the cracks within their leadership.<\/p>\n

The AFC\u2019s firm stance and comprehensive understanding of electoral processes caught GECOM off-guard. We were horrified to learn that the Commission only began to discuss the use of biometrics for voter verification at the place of poll in May of 2024. Their attempts to dismiss biometric voting as \u201cimpractical at this stage\u201d given the shortage of time, slothful process at the tender board, and the need for national stakeholder consultations were met with strong rebuttals from our team, who underscored the feasibility and necessity of these measures.<\/p>\n

This chaotic response from GECOM only strengthens our resolve. Today, it became abundantly clear that GECOM has failed to conduct the most elementary of reviews of its operations since 2020 and has also failed to take on board any of the several recommendations contained in the reports of the various international observers team.<\/p>\n

The Alliance For Change remains unwavering in its commitment to electoral reforms. We call on all Guyanese citizens to stand with us as we demand transparency, accountability, and integrity in our electoral process. Better must come, and it will.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Key Points from the Meeting:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. GECOM failed to provide a coherent justification for rejecting biometrics at the place of poll.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
      \n
    1. On the AFC\u2019s recommendation that cameras in polling stations be used as a security feature and confidence building mechanism, GECOM admitted that it had not included any request for this in their budget and it has not yet been discussed as a formal agenda item.<\/li>\n
    2. It was revealed that the Chairperson unilaterally authorised the renewal of the contract of the CEO despite putting it on their agenda and in the absence of discussing it with the Commissioners.<\/li>\n
    3. Internal disagreements among Commissioners highlighted GECOM\u2019s fractured structure, a lack of unity and direction as well as partisan positions that do not augur well for a free and fair elections process.<\/li>\n
    4. The AFC\u2019s proposals are achievable and necessary to restore public confidence in the electoral process.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Next Steps:<\/strong>
      \nThe Alliance For Change will update the diplomatic community and representatives of the international observer missions on today\u2019s disclosures by GECOM and will continue to engage with the public and civil society to demand electoral fairness. The fight for justice is far from over, and we urge all citizens to join this movement for a better Guyana.
      \nEND<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      January 23, 2025 Georgetown, Guyana For immediate release to all media houses PRESS RELEASE AFC Exposes GECOM\u2019s Disarray in Lead Up to Elections Today, the Alliance For Change (AFC) engaged in a critical meeting with GECOM to advocate for necessary reforms to ensure a free and fair electoral process. Our straightforward, common-sense proposals included the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6741,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latestnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}