Politicians should have no role in GECOM – Carter Centre

The elections watchdog, The Carter Centre, has recommended that there should not be political party representation on the Guyana Elections Commission. This recommendation forms part of the final statement by the Carter Centre on the 2015 General and Regional Elections in Guyana.

The report said that as it relates to ‘Election Administration,’parliament and political parties should consider alternative models of election administration. The so-called ‘Carter formula’ which has been followed since 1992, provides for an Elections Commission with balanced representation of ruling and opposition parties. While adoption of this model was critical to the success of the breakthrough transitional elections in 1992, in subsequent elections it has allowed party interests to interfere with effective electoral administration.”

The report said that as part of electoral reform efforts, Guyana should give careful consideration to alternative models thereby reducing or eliminating political party representation and increasing the role of independent members of civil society and professional experts.

“The Carter-Price formula for GECOM should be changed to ensure that GECOM is not divided solely along political lines. GECOM should be composed of individuals who are solely committed to carrying out a successful and transparent elections process and who have the confidence of political parties, but can also maintain independence.” The Carter-Price formula has been described as a consensus-achieving process since there is no numerical advantage in the composition of the commission. The six Commissioners are chosen by the President and the Leader of the Opposition. Both sides select three persons. The Chairman of the Commission is chosen from a list of six names nominated and provided to the President by the Opposition Leader.

In a 2005 report addressing the shortcomings of the Carter-Price formula done by former Chief Elections Officer of Jamaica, Carl Dundas, it was said that the erosion of confidence in GECOM is in part due to the failure of the formula to enable decisions to be taken on a timely basis and with a measure of consensus.

According to that report, there should be an independent Electoral Management Body (EMB) which would fix all the issues which the Carter-Price formula fails to address. The report mentioned a number of countries which had adopted a successful EMB formula, which include Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and the United Kingdom.

The report said that the EMB approach in the context of Guyana is to construct a formula that avoids party nominees as Commissioners and instead use a participatory format that entails three levels of screening before the names of independent individuals are submitted to the President for formal appointment.

“The essence of the approach is to constitute, by Constitutional amendment, a panel of four eminent, independent Guyanese citizens of highest integrity to receive nominations through advertisement (or otherwise) within a stipulated period of six weeks, from political parties, professional bodies, civil society organisations, privatesector commercial bodies, trade unions, the Judicial Services Commission and individuals.”

The panel would include personalities such as the Chancellor of the Judiciary, the Chairperson of the Human Rights Commission, the Chairperson of the Ethnic Relations Commission and the Head of the Women and Gender Equality Commission.

According to the report, this panel will have to select not more than seven names from the list of nominations and submit them to a committee of the National Assembly, constituted by representatives of political parties in proportion to the number of seats held in the House.

This committee within the National Assembly would consider the matter and submit three or five names to the National Assembly for approval of each name by twothirds majority. Following which, those names would be submitted to the President for formal approval.

The Carter-Price formula was originally conceived by former United States of America President, Jimmy Carter and former Prime Minister of Belize, George Price.

(KAIETEUR NEWS)