Georgetown : Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon, continues to call on the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to reveal information on four issues.
The issue of joint service members voting remains a bugbear for the government, according to Dr Luncheon, noting that “specifically the preparations and the approaches that have yet to publicly air and worse, specifically provided to stakeholders.”
The second area of concern for Cabinet is the public vetting of Elections Day staff, Dr. Luncheon said. He stated that calls have been made by the government to GECOM, for the public disclosure of the commission’s staffer to be employed at its 2,294 polling places.
Government is also calling for the public disclosure of proxies, “who applied and particularly who have gained the right to be voted for, by proxy.”
The selection of polling places continues to be a matter of concern at Cabinet, he added, “particularly because of what have been illustrated, the difficulties in some electoral divisions and districts, identifying precisely where the private residences are, and in some instances, the actual choice of suitability of these private residences. We heard about rum shops being identified as polling places, not exactly comparable to what was proposed to be used as places of poll, and only in unavoidable circumstances, to resort to private residences.”
Dr. Luncheon explained that in his opinion, confidence building needs to be “more thoroughly and more aggressively embraced” by GECOM and particularly because election observers, should continue to write and document that the upcoming elections subscribed to standards of international repute, “more can be done, to emphasise, particularly on those four aspects that were of concern to Cabinet”.
