Georgetown: Recent revelations issued by the Organisation of American States (OAS) Electoral Observer Mission to the Guyana General and Regional Elections of the 2011 Elections has left the Alliance for Change (AFC) calling for a reform of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).
The OAS in a recent report has revealed a number of concerns that have not been limited to the fact that envelopes containing statements of poll were delivered by an unaccredited and unescorted individual. And according to Chairman of the AFC, Khemraj Ramjattan, the AFC is confident that it will be able to get the full support of the House in light of the OAS report. He amplified the need “to have some confidence in the system otherwise we are perennially going to be in trouble simply because we are suspicious of the system.” This, he said, is probably one of the biggest problems with Guyana and once such suspicious, even without foundation “there will be huge problems…there will trouble in the sense that there might be problems due to uneducated officials who simply did not realise they had to do certain procedures; it happens in every democracy but we feel that all of those happenings there must be attempts to correct them and reform and what the OAS in its set of recommendations is stating is that there are things to reform…”
In highlighting the OAS recommendation that there is need for reformation and adherence, Ramjattan speaking at his party’s weekly press briefing Wednesday disclosed that “the AFC has made this point at the level of the tripartite talks with the Government and A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the AFC fully endorses the recommendations of the OAS Observation Mission, and to this end the Party will bring to the National Assembly a Motion calling for the Reform of GECOM.” APNU, according to Ramjattan, has indicated that it will support such a motion.
Based on the revelations of the OAS, there has been no evidence to support rigging of the 2011 General Elections on the part of the opposition. However, there are some issues of concern among them the fact that in the tabulation and processing of the polls several incidents (were observed) which demonstrated the lack of application of uniform procedures.
A verbal Report issued by the OAS outlines that OAS teams stationed at the tabulation center in Georgetown observed at least two envelopes containing statements of poll being delivered by an unaccredited and unescorted individual. In addition it was noted that on at least two occasions, statements of poll bypassed the system whereby the Commissioners examined them and they were instead delivered directly to the manual tabulation process.
Further the OAS revealed that one day after the November 28, 2011 elections, for about half an hour the reception procedure was reversed by the GECOM Chairman to institute the direct delivery of statements of poll to the manual tabulation process, prior to their verification by Commissioners. Prior to the declaration of results, the IT department was unable to finish processing all of the statements of poll, and 307 were not in the digital tabulation center’s system half an hour before the originally scheduled declaration of results. “While the declaration of results is legally based on the information provided to the Chief Electoral Officer by the Returning Officers, corroborating the manual tally with that of the IT department prior to the declaration of results could have helped lend credibility to the process,” the OAS noted.
These observations of the OAS Mission, according to Chairman of the Alliance for Change (AFC), Khemraj Ramjattan, are a clear indication that GECOM must undergo reform if the people of Guyana are to have any confidence in the system. The Report clearly points to the need to reform GECOM prior to the holding of Local Government Elections and it must therefore be treated with top-most priority. “The AFC has made this point at the level of the tripartite talks with the Government and APNU (and) the AFC fully endorses the recommendations of the OAS Observation Mission and to this end the Party will bring to the National Assembly a Motion calling for the reform of GECOM. In light of the OAS Report, the AFC anticipates that it will get the full support of the House.”
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