President election date premature- Opposition GECOM Commissioners

Last Updated on Tuesday, 27 May 2025, 18:00 by Writer

The three opposition-aligned Guyana Election commissioners on Tuesday said President Irfaan Ali’s naming of September 1 as the date for general elections was apparently based on unilateral advice by the Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) because that timeframe was not in keeping with a work plan that was last discussed on May 20.

“While recognizing that it’s the President’s prerogative to determine the election date, it is crass for him to have done so based on the purported Chairman’s guidance, which clearly misrepresented the CEO’s (Chief Elections Officer) projected date of September 22 and the fact that even the proposed date was still under consideration and not yet agreed.,” Commissioner Vincent Alexander told a news conference.

A senior GECOM official declined to discuss the issue until the seven-member body deliberates on it.

Mr Alexander said he and his colleagues had no prior knowledge of the announcement of the election date until they heard it in President Ali’s Independence Day address late Sunday night.

Mr Alexander said he and fellow commissioners Desmond Trotman and Charles Corbin were told that the GECOM administration has crafted a new work plan to facilitate the undertaking that GECOM Chairman, Claudette Singh, seemed to have given Dr Ali.

He said the new work plan was circulated on Monday, May 26, 2025 at 4:30 p.m.

Mr Corbin said there was still room for the Commission to discuss the new work plan, engage stakeholders and for the Chairman to re-engage the President about a new timeline by which GECOM would be ready to conduct general and regional elections.

“With those reduced time frames, because we will be limiting their ability to be able to respond…We will be short-changing the public which reduces the impact and efficiency and our delivery of an election which could be classified as free and fair,” Mr Corbin said.

Commissioner Alexander said a cursory review of the plan shows that timelines have been reduced by 21 days.

Among the timelines, he said, would be affected are claims and objections down from 21 to three days, submission of the lists of candidates as well as statutory deadlines such as those for appeals by parties in relation to the list of nominees.

He said the new work plan would affect matters such as allowing mainly remanded prisoners to vote, and the deletion of names of deceased voters from the list based on reports submitted by the police and the Chief Medical Officer in keeping with the Representation of the People Act.

Mr Corbin said the discretionary time would also impact on the extent to which parties can verify the voters list to ensure their candidates are eligible voters. He said the that process usually took 30 days but now four days was being proposed.

He said the smaller parties would be affected and if not changed would not ensure there is a level playing field.