CHAIRMAN of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Dr. Steve Surujbally is confident that, with adequate resources, the commission would be able to administer Local Government elections this year as satisfactorily as it did the 2006 General and Regional Elections.
But while acknowledging that Local Government elections are now long overdue since the last such polls were held in 1994, he yesterday hinted that GECOM would prefer to first embark on house-to-house registration.
This exercise, he said, would include the registration of eligible 14-year olds in Guyana and once this is carried out, “there would be no great impediments to commencing the Local Government elections early in the coming year”.
“We believe that efforts are afoot to have Local Government elections this year; however, we have reason to believe that the Consolidated Fund cannot withstand the holding of the Local Government elections and a full house-to-house registration, as is being called for by some political parties and other organisations, in the same year,” he told reporters.
Noting that although GECOM is not a part of the Joint Task Force on Local Government Reform, he said its secretariat has nonetheless studied six options prepared by a consultant relating to the methodology associated with the holding of Local Government elections.
This exercise, he said, resulted in the GECOM Secretariat developing a paper delineating the pros and cons for each option.
Surujbally said this paper had been shared with the political parties to help in the deliberations of the Joint Task Force on Local Government Reform.
At this stage of the deliberations, he said, the commission understands that the governing People’s Progress Party/Civic (PPP/C) and the main Opposition People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) hierarchy “are close to agreement on the methodology under which the Local Government elections would be conducted”.
“Be that as it may, I must emphasise that, in the end, it would be the political parties which would decide what format they would prefer for the Local Government elections,” Surujbally posited.
Cognisant of GECOM’s responsibility to administer Local Government elections whenever mandated by Parliament, he said the commission has budgeted for holding such elections in its 2007 capital estimates using the existing format.
“We are aware, based on our experience, that we might be required to revise the entire plan, should we be given a new format for Local Government elections,” he said.
“If this were to occur, we are confident that with adequate resources, we would be able to administer Local Government elections in a similarly satisfactory manner as we did the 2006 General and Regional Elections,” the GECOM Chairman assured.
On the issue of house-to-house registration, he said the commission has taken note of the call from the PNCR for a new voters list emerging from a full house-to-house registration for the next Local Government elections as it is aware of the recommendations of the local and foreign observer groups for the conduct of such an exercise.
In this context, he said GECOM requested funding in its 2007 budget estimates. “Whether we get the requested funds is totally out of our hands (and) the question that emerges is whether we should embark on preparations for the Local Government elections before establishing a new voters list,” he asserted.
Surujbally said he and the Chief Elections Officer have been meeting political parties represented in Parliament with the objective of ascertaining which immediate undertaking these parties would prefer.
“Within the context of transparency, it is imperative that GECOM be exposed to inputs from the political parties (and) some parties are prepared to review their original positions on the matter,” he told reporters.
“GECOM, both the commission and the technical staff in the secretariat, are tending towards the preference of embarking on a house-to-house registration which would include the registration of eligible 14-year olds in our country and once this is carried out, there would be no great impediments to commencing the Local Government elections early in the coming year,” Surujbally said.
He said once the house-to-house registration is completed, the continuous registration process embarked upon prior to the 2006 elections will become a routine exercise during the years between the present time and the next elections.
With regards to GECOM’s overall plans for 2007, Surujbally noted that emanating from a series of review exercises relative to the preparations for and implementation of the 2006 elections, were several recommendations pertaining to the improvement of delivery of future elections.
These recommendations, he said, included:
** The contesting parties should ensure that proper documentation is made available for their agents
** Supporting agencies including the media and government departments should understand their role in the whole scheme of things and so try as far as possible to facilitate the process
** Systems must be put in place to allow persons from the public and education sectors to seek employment with GECOM without fear of threats from their immediate supervisors
** Voter education must be an ongoing exercise
** Vehicles suitable for the terrain in which they operate should be provided
** Mobilise, identify and train persons who live in interior areas to serve in those areas, long before elections are scheduled to take place
** Serious consideration must be given to the possibility of sub-dividing District #4 into independent districts
** Serious consideration must be given to the possibility of introducing, at the University of Guyana’s Faculty of Social Sciences, a course with the relevant credits on Elections Management.
“In so doing, we will be securing competent and trained staff for the future,” he posited, adding that professional officers in the secretariat can do the training since the pool from which to recruit competent Field Managers is getting shallower as the years go by.
Surujbally also noted that, based on another recommendation, serious consideration must be given to the possibility of introducing electronic voting.
Noting that both Brazil and India have implemented this methodology successfully, he said this method would eliminate a host of problems – to say nothing of the paperwork that elections produce.