ANUG wants GECOM overhaul, TNM’s Asha Kissoon removed from illegally sitting in Parliament

Last Updated on Wednesday, 4 December 2024, 6:39 by Denis Chabrol

(left to right) Lenox Shuman of the Liberty and Justice Party, Asha Kissoon of The New Movement and A New and United Guyana’s Ralph Ramkarran sign their memorandum of understanding on the joinder of their lists in July 2020. (File picture)

Pressure on Wednesday mounted on the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) and House Speaker Manzoor Nadir to take immediate steps to remove The New Movement’s (TNM) Asha Kissoon from the National Assembly.

A New and United Guyana (ANUG) political party issued the call now that the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has admitted that it made a mistake about which of the three joinder parties should occupy the parliamentary seat.

“I do believe that any issue should be fixed right away. The illegal occupation of the seat by the TNM candidate is an affront to all Guyanese. Her continued illegal occupation permitted by GECOM and more so the Speaker of the House, when already recalled by TNM rep of the list- Dr Gerald Forde, is what allows the continued flouting of the law,” ANUG’s newly-elected Chairman, Mark France told Demerara Waves Online News.

GECOM’s Legal Officer, Attorney-at-Law Kurt Da Silva last month said GECOM erred by allowing a TNM representative to become a parliamentarian under the rules governing a joinder list. With the Liberty and Justice Party (LJP) having won the most votes–2,657 compared to ANUG’s 2,313 and TNM 244– GECOM said the LJP should have continued to occupy the seat throughout the five-year term following the 2020 elections. GECOM Chairman, Retired Justice Claudette Singh said the issue had gone before the Commission and no one said anything but she was considering another step that she declined to disclose.

Dr Kissoon, who was sworn in on April 24, 2023 to replace the LJP’s Lenox Shuman, has refused to resign, despite repeated calls for her to do so even when ANUG had believed that it was its turn to have a parliamentarian.

The ANUG Chairman also frowned on Dr Kissoon’s stance, saying that it has serious implications for parliamentary decisions because she should not be a member of the National Assembly in the first instance. “Having Asha there brings the Honourable House into disrepute especially since she’s voting on issues when she has no right to and being remunerated by taxpayer’s dollars,” he said.  ANUG also said the governing People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC) should share the blame for her to “illegally enter, occupy and now squat interminably” in the House. “To make matters worse, this ineligible member Dr. Asha Kissoon, of the revered House of Representatives now occupies the post of Deputy Speaker having been nominated and elected with the full and continued support of the governing side, making them as guilty as GECOM,” the party said.

Insisting that the law governing GECOM must be upheld in keeping with existing rules, ANUG also said there should be electoral and constitutional reforms governing the make up of the seven-member election management authority, which this year received GY$3.5 billion.,  to better improve its efficiency should be looked at.

“Not only is the administrative arm of GECOM- seemingly compromised but the entire Commission which has well respected and experienced legal luminaries on both sides seems to be complicit or does not have the intestinal fortitude to “open the Pandora Box” in this “Asha Kissoon” blunder, in addressing this glaring deficit in administration.

It is also with a tinge of sadness and regret that the Chairwoman, Retired Justice Claudette Singh, being an esteemed former Judge herself, was either unaware/did not conduct enhanced due diligence/or trusted information presented to her by subordinates. Invariably however, the buck stops with Ms. Claudette Singh and this issue will always be associated with her stewardship as Chair of GECOM,” ANUG added.

ANUG said in the past GECOM had allowed members, ineligible because of their dual citizenship, to sit and vote in the National Assembly, and has allowed political parties to get away with not submitting for review, by the Commission, their campaign financing information as mandated by Sections 120-124 of the Representation of the People Act.

The Alliance For Change (AFC) has also expressed a loss of confidence in the GECOM Chairman over the Kissoon issue.