AFC indicates WIN should be represented on elections commission

Last Updated on Friday, 27 March 2026, 20:35 by Writer

The Alliance For Change (AFC) on Thursday indicated that it believed that the main opposition We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) should be represented on the seven-member Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), but declined to say how that should be done.

AFC leader David Patterson said his party had long maintained that GECOM should reflect the makeup of the 65-seat National Assembly. “We have always said, and that has been our position, that GECOM should always reflect the parliamentary composition,” he told the AFC’s first press conference in several months. 

He, however, had no firm proposal on how that could be realised, including whether he believed the existing three A Partnership for National Unity (APNU)-aligned opposition election commissioners — Vincent Alexander, Charles Corbin and Desmond Trotman — should resign.

“I’m not saying that all three should resign. I’m saying that the final composition should reflect the composition of the current parliament. However that is worked out between all the parties, I can’t say, but I do think that it should be reflective of the opposition components at the moment,” he said.

For its part, the WIN had been pushing for the trio to step down and make way for replacements now that it, with 17 of the 29 opposition seats, is the main opposition party.

The three commissioners and the leader of the People’s National Congress Reform and APNU, Aubrey Norton, however, said only the courts or a constitutional amendment could force them out of office.

The WIN is yet to make good on its repeated threats to take the matter to court.

With the People’s Progressive Party Civic-led government seemingly preparing for local government elections (LGE) this year, the AFC leader lamented the failure of GECOM to meet since September 7, 2025.

Mr Patterson said that due to the fact that no commission meeting was being held, key and critical vacancies could not be filled and other major decisions for holding LGE could not be made. “That means nothing required for local government election can be lawfully approved. Not the work plan, not nomination day, not the voters list, not the polling agents, not the recruitment of staff,” he said.

He said six of the nine senior administrative positions at GECOM were vacant, warning that any attempt to run an election without them would be “reckless and dangerous.” 

Mr Patterson charged that GECOM was operating without oversight, authority or legitimacy and so if that election management body attempts to conduct LGE, those polls “will be compromised before they begin.”

He said the AFC was demanding the immediate reconvening of the full GECOM and the urgent advertising and placement of all critical agencies, and an end to all unilateral administrative changes.

The GECOM Chairman, Retired Justice Claudette Singh has not summoned a meeting of the commission for months, reportedly on the basis that the three opposition commissioners no longer have any locus standi.

However, they continue to be paid salaries.

In turn Mr Alexander is on record as questioning the legitimacy of Ms Singh because she had been picked by then President David Granger when the APNU+AFC coalition was in office from a list of nominees by then Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo.