Governance

Bill to prevent ‘abuse’ of electoral system passed: The Representation of the People Act (RoPA) amendment bill of 2022 was passed in the National Assembly early Tuesday morning despite objections by the opposition APNU+AFC that it needed to be scrutinized by a Special Select Committee. According to Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, the amendments to the RoPA are a result of events following the March 2020 general elections which saw attempts to rig the elections in favour of the then APNU+AFC government.

“These amendments are to prevent further abuse of the electoral system and promote transparency. It seeks to enhance, modernise and reform the democratic quality and architecture of our country and to make our electoral machinery and the registration process and the compilation of the list of electors more transparent, more accountable and more effective. The 2020 elections brought to light the way that the legislation in its current form can be subjected to abuse,” he said during the second reading of the bill. Nandlall added that the bill attempts to examine, organise and compile the various scattered pieces of electoral legislation, allotting them to their respective places in either the ROPA or the National Registration Act. One of the major changes to the RoPA is the division of Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica), the country’s largest electoral district, into four sub-districts – East Bank Demerara, East Coast Demerara, North Georgetown and South Georgetown – effectively adding a new section to Section 6 of RoPA, which deals with polling districts and divisions. The section also divides the polling districts Region 3 and Region 6 into sub-districts, each acting independently and distinguished by the names. Section 6 of the principal act is amended so that every village or locality has an adequate number of polling places to accommodate the electors and a new section 6A is inserted so that Region No. 3 will be divided into the Essequibo Islands and River, St. Lawrence to Cornelia Ida, and the Hague to Arabio Creek sub-districts. Region 6 will be split into three polling sub-districts: East Bank Berbice to Canje, Upper Corentyne and Lower Corentyne. The amendment bill also requires that the Statements of Poll (SOPs), among other certified forms, be distributed to the Chief Election Officer, and the Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission and provides for the Returning Officer to post an electronic copy of the SOP on the Commission’s website to be publicly viewed. Hefty fines and lengthy jail times for election-related offence are also part of the amendments. The fines are in the millions while jail time ranges from three years to life.