GECOM to tell president can’t meet poll deadline
-to launch house-to-house registration -PPP calls for international intervention
By majority decisions that saw Chairman James Patterson use his casting vote, the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has determined that it will advise President David Granger that the 90-day constitutional deadline for general elections cannot be met and will continue with its approved work plan for the year, including a national house-to-house registration process. The decisions were based on advice received from the Ministry of Finance, which noted that the approved annual budget of a constitutional agency, such as GECOM, shall not be altered without the approval of the National Assembly. However, the opposition PPP yesterday challenged the advice and accused GECOM of toeing the government line and pushing the country closer to a constitutional crisis. As a result, it made a call for international intervention. Following a statutory Commission meeting yesterday, PPP/C-nominated commissioner Robeson Benn told reporters that the Commission had voted to advise that GECOM cannot make the 90-day timeline as was established by the passage of a no-confidence vote against the government; that it needs money for elections; and that it would continue with its normal activities.
GECOM Public Relations Officer Yolanda Ward confirmed that following discussions on the advice received from the Ministry of Finance, the coalition-nominated commissioners moved three motions, which were passed by a vote of 3 to 2 commissioners on the 90day timeline, and 4 to 3 on the two other issues.
The vote on the motion pertaining to the deadline saw controversy over the recording of the vote of PPP/C-nominated commissioner Sase Gunraj. According to Ward, Gunraj did not indicate a yes or a no and was therefore recorded as having abstained. “On the second motion, he voted no and added ‘I said no for the first and I will say no again.’ However, [there was] no recording [of] him saying no to the first,” Ward explained.
Patterson cast his vote with the coalition commissioners, resulting in a majority vote in favour of motions that President Granger be informed that based on advice the current appropriation cannot be used for elections and that GECOM will continue with its approved work plan as decided before December 21st, 2018, when the vote on the noconfidence motion was declared carried.
The advice from the Finance Ministry was contained in a letter sent to Chief Election Officer Keith Lowenfield by Finance Secretary Michael Joseph, who offered two areas of guidance. Joseph explained that Section 277(1) (b) of the constitution indicated that no moneys shall be withdrawn from the Consolidated Fund, except where the issue of these monies has been authorised by an Appropriation Act. He noted that in keeping with this provision, $5.37 billion was allocated to GECOM via Appropriation Act No. 22 of 2018; $3.36 billion of this sum was allocated for house-tohouse registration in 2019.
He further noted that the Fiscal Management and Accountability (Amendment) Act, No. 4 of 2015 in Section 80B (7) states that the annual budget of a constitutional agency approved by the National Assembly shall not be altered without the prior approval of the National Assembly and stressed the ministry cannot therefore alter the allocation of GECOM a constitutional agency. “The Office of the Finance Secretary has no locus standi in this matter,” Joseph concluded.
In a statement issued yesterday after the meeting, the PPP while not disagreeing with Joseph’s conclusion that the ministry cannot interfere, disputed his interpretation of Section 80B (7).
The party argued that Section 80B (8) makes clear that “the appropriation of a constitutional agency approved by the National Assembly shall be disbursed as a lump sum” and contends that 80 B(7) does not prevent GECOM from utilising the lump sum allocated to it as it sees fit to carry out its functions.
The party has claimed that GECOM’s actions guarantee that Guyana is pushed towards a constitutional crisis and has called for international intervention.
The PPP charged that the APNU+AFC coalition government-nominated Commissioners and the unilaterally-appointed GECOM Chairman demonstrated “their illogical willingness to toe the government line, and in so doing have made the Constitution of Guyana subservient to the will of GECOM.”
It said GECOM is subservient to the Constitution whose provisions on the consequence of a no-confidence vote are clear. “GECOM’s refusal to begin preparations for General and Regional Elections, after the December 21, 2018 vote on the no-confidence motion finds it complicit in frustrating the timeline for the constitutionally due elections and there was no clear timeline on when that elections management authority could hold elections,” the party said, before adding that “there has been no effort to make a decision on what obtains in the short-term [and] no decision at the level of the Commission on when GECOM will be ready for elections.”
(Lowenfield has previously indicated that the GECOM Secretariat will need 148 days to run off an election.)
As a result, it concludes that “the time is opportune for international action- as was needed in 1990 to ensure constitutional compliance.”
“As was the case then, Guyana is faced with a situation where GECOM is dominated by the PNCR. At risk are the democratic gains that have been made over the past two decades,” the party stressed before calling on the international community and all Guyanese to condemn GECOM’s complicity “in the violation of the constitution.”