-UN assessors warn

integrity of GECOM’s database, including voter registration, and a solid results transmission system. As done in the past, the NAM recommended that the UN should continue to play a significant role in supporting different/civic/voter education initiatives aimed at promoting a peaceful electoral environment and acceptance of the electoral results.

It recommended that it should continue to support efforts towards gender mainstreaming and promote the participation and representation of women, traditionally underrepresented groups, minorities and persons with disabilities. The NAM’s report said the UN should provide a coordination mechanism for members of the international community to ensure coherence and avoid duplication of any potential support to the 2018 local government elections and the 2020 general elections.

Throughout the electoral process, the NAM said, the political situation should be closely monitored to assess the needs for further UN political engagement, primarily through the UN Resident Coordinator/United Nations Development Programme’s Resident Representative, Guyana.

The NAM noted that while UN electoral support was necessary to improve the technical aspect of the process, GECOM needs to engage in activities/initiatives, including effective communication with different electoral stakeholders in a regular and systematic manner and regular consultation with key stakeholders to ensure transparency at all stages of the process and to build trust and confidence in the electoral process.

Meanwhile, in relation to the NAM report and GECOM, PPP/C-nominated Commissioner Robeson Benn, in a letter to the press published on August 10th, said that at the August 7th statutory meeting of the Commission, GECOM Chairman Justice (ret’d) James Patterson “mystified the Commission” when he stated that he had cancelled “indefinitely” a meeting scheduled for 5 pm that same day to review the NAM report.

Benn said when asked why the meeting was being cancelled, “The Chairman alluded to information which he said he had been made aware of, with respect to the engagement and report which he could not divulge.”

It appeared, he said, the Chairman had received copies of the NAM report at least one week before when a question of a meeting was first discussed, and he only released the report to the commissioners on the evening of August 6.

Benn said he urged that the meeting should be pursued as arranged because of the peremptory nature of the “cancellation,” the need for good faith engagement with the UN on the issue of elections, because of the findings they were providing, and the evident need for assistance “even if the meeting later that day would be treated as only the first one on the report and the proposal.”

Benn said that a dangerous precedent was being set in which the Chairman cancelled the meeting without engaging other commissioners and no acceptable explanation was given for the cancellation.

Eventually, he said, the matter was put to a vote and the Chairman, three APNU-nominated commissioners and one PPP/Cnominated commissioner voted to go along with the Chairman’s cancellation.