PPP shrugs off Forward Guyana Movement’s High Court ballot exclusion case

Last Updated on Saturday, 23 August 2025, 1:02 by Writer

General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Bharrat Jagdeo on Thursday dismissed the strength of a High Court case against the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) by the Forward Guyana Movement seeking to be included on the ballots for general elections in all 10 electoral districts.

He said he deemed the case as one in which FGM leader Amanza Walton-Desir was seeking relevance. “Nobody pays attention to Amanza Walton and her dead campaign,” he told a news conference. “It’s just a lawsuit designed to draw attention to herself because she has no campaign,” he added.

Touching on the case, he questioned how a political party could be on the ballot paper if a list of candidates was not submitted. Mr Jagdeo said the FGM did not submit geographical candidates for those districts and so could not be on the ballot. “It’s nonsensical,” he said.

The 2nd Vice President of Guyana relied on Section 11 (C ) 1 of the Representation of the People Act which states that “Every elector shall have only one vote which shall be cast in the geographical constituency in which he is registered and votes in respect of the list of his choice, and that vote shall be counted to determine the outcomes of both the election for that geographical constituency and for the country taken as a whole: a vote for a Party’s geographical constituency list is simultaneously a vote for that Party’s national top-up list.”

In court papers seen by Demerara Waves Online News, FGM candidate Krystal Hadassah, is seeking an order restraining the GECOM from proceeding with the conduct of the September 1 general and regional elections unless and until that political party’s list of candidates is duly included on the ballots in all 10 electoral regions, in keeping with Guyana’s Constitution and the Representation of the People Act.

Through her lawyer Dr Vivian Williams, another order being sought mandates that GECOM includes all political parties contesting the national elections on the ballot papers in all geographic regions.

The FGM is also seeking declarations that the GECOM practice of excluding political parties contesting the national elections from appearing on the ballot in certain geographic regions violates the Applicant’s rights, as well as the rights of voters in those regions, to vote and to equal suffrage under Article 59 of the Constitution, is discriminatory in itself and/or in its effect, constituting differential treatment of voters based on “place of origin,” and race, contrary to Article 149 of the Constitution, and GECOM’s system of omitting political parties from ballots in regions where they are not fielding candidates for regional seats in the National Assembly distorts proportional representation, undermines the principle of representative democracy, and is unconstitutional.

Other declarations being sought are that the GECOM exclusion of the FGM list of candidates from the ballots for the national elections in regions 7, 8, and 9 constitutes a denial of the first-named Applicant’s constitutional right, as a candidate, to ballot access and to contest in free and fair elections, GECOM’s exclusion of political parties contesting the national elections from ballots in certain geographic regions, violates Article 13 of the Constitution by undermining inclusionary democracy, restricting voter choice, and limiting the ability of smaller parties to participate effectively in the political process, and that any elections held without the inclusion, on the ballots in all ten regions, of all political parties that have satisfied the legal requirements to contest the national elections are null, void, and of no legal effect.

FGM is made up of Forward Guyana (FG), The People’s Movement (TPM), and the Vigilant Political Action Committee (V-PAC).