GHRA calls for reform of GECOM, electoral system to be made priority

The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) has called for the long delayed reforms of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) and the electoral system to be made priority.

The call by the human rights body, made in a November 20 statement, came in response to the government’s proposals to amend the Representation of the Peoples Act (RoPA) in wake of the contentions that arose during last year’s elections process.

The GHRA, however, is skeptical of the proposed consultation, saying that it appears to be calculated to further, rather than reduce, political tensions in Guyana by keeping attention focused on the post-elections fiasco of 2020 and to sustain political polarization. “To this extent it constitutes a piece of monumental hypocrisy,” it said.

Against this background, the GHRA argued that reform of GECOM and implementation of single-seat constituencies should be priority action.

“These reforms were unanimously approved both by the Constitutional Reform Commission and in Parliament by the Parliamentary Oversight Committee on Electoral Reform in 2000. However, subsequent efforts over the next decade by civic and religious bodies, the diplomatic community and business sector to implement the reforms were successfully frustrated by the combined resistance of the leadership of the PPP and the PNC,” it reminded.

It added that revival of the quest to implement the reforms should be the current focus of civic action instead of amendments to RoPA. “Both PPP Governments between 2000 2015 and the APNU between 2015 - 2020 had ample opportunity to address these reforms but chose not to do so, preferring to monopolize GECOM to keep MPs accountable to the party leader rather than to the people who elected them,” the group, however, lamented.

According to the human rights body, rather than civil society misleading citizens by encouraging the so-called RoPA ‘consultation’, the consultation to address the substance of electoral reform – that is, the electoral system and the institution for delivering it, GECOM — should be prioritised. “Without such a framework for the consultation, bizarre episodes such as the recent public announcements by partisan Commissioners of their favoured candidates seeking the post of CEO of GECOM will continue to distract from the substantive issues,” it added.

For its part, the GHRA proposed that the consultation should focus on the composition, structure and powers of GECOM, and completion of the agreed reforms for expansion of single-seat constituency. “Ample documentation exists to enable the current generation understand why our indefensible electoral system has survived. It has nothing to do with RoPA technicalities but everything to do with a persistent, mutual leadership cover-up to resist real changes,” it said.