Preparing for General and Regional Elections (Part VII)

In our article of 25 February 2019, we reported that former Maldives President Abdulla Yameen was arrested for allegedly receiving bribes and kickbacks estimated at US$80 million involving leasing islands and reefs. Investigators found illegal payments totalling around US$1 million into Yameen’s bank account. Last Thursday, Yameen was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison for money laundering. We also reported last week that two Ministers of the Namibian government resigned over allegations that they granted preference access to fishing grounds to Iceland’s largest fishing conglomerate, Samherji in exchange for bribes. They have since been arrested and are awaiting trial.

Formation of new political parties

Since our article of 2 September, at least two other political parties have been formed to contest the 2 March 2020 elections, in addition to the A New and United Guyana (ANUG) and the Liberty and Justice Party (LJP). These are Change Guyana party, headed by businessman Robert Badal; and The Citizens’ Initiative, headed by Ruel Johnson.

The Guyanese society has become so polarized, especially since the 21 December 2018 vote of no confidence in the Government, that these new parties are unlikely to make any significant impact on the outcome of the 2 March 2020 elections unless they combine forces to create a united third force. Even then such a force is likely to face significant challenges, considering that most of those who had supported the AFC over the years felt betrayed by the party for not providing the desired checks and balances on its senior coalition partner and for not holding it to account, as faithfully promised. Nevertheless, it could very well be that a united third force can garner enough votes to prevent either of the two main political parties from winning a majority of the votes of the electors. This is what is needed under the present constitutional arrangement.

Throughout Guyana’s post-Independence period, these two parties derive their support overwhelmingly along ethnic lines from the two major races, with little or no effort being made to change the pattern of voting to one based on due reflection on which political party has a better plan to move the country forward. In such a situation, whichever party loses the elections, their supporters, not without justification, feel marginalized. Our political culture has been one in which there has been the strong tendency for the party in government to give preferential treatment to its political base in terms of access to jobs and other benefits the State has to offer.

PPP/C election manifesto

In our article of 28 January 2019, we reported on the promises made by the PPP/C candidate, Dr. Irfaan Ali, if his party wins the next elections. Last Friday, the PPP/C presented an outline of its election manifesto, the full version of which is expected to be released in January. The following are the proposed key actions, as gleaned from the presentations made and reported in the media: √ Constructing a bypass linking Mocha, Eccles and the Demerara Harbour Bridge; 4-lane highway from Georgetown to Timehri, high-span bridge across the Demerara River, deep water harbour at the mouth of the Berbice River, and 2,000 miles of roadway in the hinterland;

√ Reopening of the sugar estates that the present Administration has closed;

√ Creating 50,000 jobs over a 5-year period;

√ Distributing 10,000 house lots annually and removing or reducing VAT on building materials and forestry and mining equipment;

√ Providing cheaper and reliable electricity through the resuscitation of the Amaila Falls project, and promoting the use of solar and wind energy especially for the hinterland communities;

√ Liberalising the telecommunications sector, including cheaper access to data and bandwidth;

√ Resuscitating the One-Laptop Per Family project;

√ Using oil revenues to make cash transfers to citizens; and

√ Renegotiating all oil and gas contracts, including the 2016 Petroleum Agreement with ExxonMobil’s subsidiaries.

We await the publication of the full version of the manifesto.

Revised APNU/AFC agreement

A new coalition agreement has been reached between APNU and the AFC which will see Prime Ministerial candidacy going to the latter in addition to a ten percent reduction in the number of ministerial positions, should the coalition win the forthcoming elections. It is not clear how many seats in the National Assembly the AFC will get. The AFC should consider itself very lucky, considering its significantly reduced standing in the last local government elections, compared with that in the 2011 National and Regional Elections.

Senior AFC officials boasted that the agreement represents the “winner does not take all” approach. Our understanding of this approach is the party winning the elections does not assign all the ministerial and parliamentary positions to itself but shares them with all the political parties contesting the elections as well as with civil society, based on an agreed formula, such as the number of seats garnered in the case of the former. The APNU+AFC coalition will be contesting the forthcoming elections as a single entity and therefore the concept of “winner does not take all” does not apply.

Dissolution of Parliament

In last week’s article, we stated that the President needs to dissolve Parliament on 2 December (today) if elections are to be held on 2 March 2020 and that if this is not done, the date for the elections will have to be pushed back. However, Article 106(7) of the Constitution uses the words ‘within three months’ and not ‘three months’. This is unlike the case of the UK where elections have to be held 25 working days after the dissolution of

Parliament. Nonetheless, the expectation is that the dissolution would take place today, the outer date, to allow enough time for political parties to present their manifestos to the electorate and to begin the process of election campaigning.

The President has indicated that it is necessary to keep Parliament open in the event funds are needed to finance urgent activities not previous catered for. However, as pointed out in last week’s article, the Minister of Finance can authorize withdrawals from the Contingencies Fund to meet such expenditure if Parliament is unable to meet, for whatever reason. Therefore, the reason for keeping Parliament open lacks merit. Interestingly, for the year so far, the National Assembly met on three occasions only on 3 January, 26 April and 23 May!

If Parliament is dissolved today, the only downside is that Ministers become ordinary citizens, though they will continue to receive salaries until election day. Similarly, a public servant wishing to join the election campaign in support of a political party, will have to resign from his/her position to do so in order to preserve the principle of neutrality of the Public Service. One recalls the former head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon, doing so, and was reappointed to the position after the PPP/C won the 2011 elections.

In support of the President’s position, the Director-General of the Ministry of the Presidency stated that GECOM may need additional funds for holding the elections.

However, the Commission has been allocated the sum of $5.371 billion to meet expenditure for 2019 compared with $2.257 billion allocated in 2018, a 238 percent increase. According to the Minister of Finance this significant increase is to ‘facilitate early preparations and to ensure the smooth conduct of these most important elections’. Since elections will not be held in 2019, GECOM should have surplus funds even after taking into account expenditure incurred on the aborted house-to-house registration. This surplus, if not utilized before year-end, will have to be surrendered to the Consolidated Fund.

On the other hand, if GECOM has no surplus funds (which is unlikely) and additional funds are needed to meet expenditure to year-end, the National Assembly will have to approve of such funds via a Supplementary Estimate. The Assembly cannot approve of a Supplementary Estimate to meet expenditure beyond 31 December since there is no approved budget for 2020. In the circumstances, the Minister can authorize an advance from the Contingencies Fund. As indicated above, he can also do so, if Parliament is dissolved today.

Announcement of Nomination Day

By Section 9 of the Representation of People’s Act, Nomination Day shall be no later than 32 days before the date of elections. It is on this day that political parties desirous of contesting the elections will formally present their lists of candidates to the Chief Election Officer. Last Saturday, GECOM announced 10 January 2020 as Nomination Day for the 2 March 2020 elections. Parliament will have to be dissolved before this date but there is no reason why this cannot be done today. If emergency funds are needed between now and year-end, the Minister can likewise tap into the Contingencies Fund.

Problems with the house-to-house registration list

The house-to-house registration commenced on 20 July 2019 with the objective of compiling a new electoral register, since according to the President the current voters’ list was bloated by an many as 200,000 names. However, the exercise was brought to a premature end on 31 August 2019. This was as a consequence of the Chief Justice ruling that, while the exercise was neither illegal not unconstitutional, it would be unconstitutional to remove names from the current list of voters unless they have died or otherwise disqualified; or to exclude the names of eligible persons who have not registered during the house-to-house registration. In effect, the ruling nullified the objective of the house-to-house registration.

Faced with the dilemma as to what to do with the results of the house-to-house registration, GECOM decided that it would merge the results of the house-to-house registration with the existing voters’ list to arrive at a Preliminary List of Electors. After this is done, there would be an extended period of claims and objections before arriving at the Official List of Electors. We had stated that exercise of merging the two lists would present a significant challenge for GECOM. In this regard, we had offered a number of suggestions, as outlined in last week’s article.

On 26 September, the Preliminary List of Electors, extracted from the National Register of Registrants, database, was published, and the period of claims and objections commenced on 1 October. One month later, on 26 October, the house-to-house registration list, containing 370,000 names, was posted alongside the PLE. In other words, there was no merger of the two lists. The claims and objections period ended on 11 November.

GECOM had enlisted the services of an international digital security company to assist in the merger of the two lists, mainly in relation to cross-matching of fingerprints. Two tranches of data were sent to the company. These were returned to GECOM, indicating about 60,000 new registrants. However, upon further examination by GECOM, about 17,000 of these names were found to be in the PLE.

Given the problems associated with the house-to-house registration list, it is not clear whether GECOM will continue to insist on the merger of the two lists to produce a ‘credible’ voters’ list; and whether this can be done in time for the elections. Meanwhile, the Commission has published a list of about 18,000 persons who had not uplifted their ID cards. However, only about 300 uplifted their cards.

International observers for the elections

Last Friday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs approved the applications of several international organizations to observe the elections. These include the Carter Center, the Organisation of American States (OAS), the Commonwealth Secretariat and the EU.