Politics

The March 2020 general and regional council elections are unlikely to be postponed as preparations are on track, according to two election commissioners. “I have no reason to think we can’t,” governing coalition-backed elections commissioner, Vincent Alexander said when asked whether the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) would meet the March 2, 2020 general elections. “There is no indication that the ...

The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has not discussed voting by the estimated 30,000 disabled and visually-impaired persons at next March’s general elections, although provision had been made for physically challenged persons to vote on the kerb of polling stations in 2015. Concerns were also raised about the confidentiality of balloting by visually-impaired persons who have to vote by proxy with ...

by GHK Lall As is now an almost reflexive aspect of election traditions in Guyana, there has been the usual appearing and flocking of them around this time. This would be the new faces, new voices, and the new sounds of the new political parties taking their places in the parade of aspirants for the attention and hearts of Guyanese ...

The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) seemed set to scrap its plan to have a supplementary list of thousands of voters who do not collect their national identification cards to prove that they are alive and in the country, but there is no decision yet on the new method that will be used to heighten security, an elections commissioner says. Government-backed ...

The dissolution of Parliament now appears sooner as the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) says it does not need any more money from government to conduct general elections next March. The Ministry of the Presidency has said that Parliament did not dissolve on December 2, 2019 – three months before general elections – because Finance Minister, Winston Jordan may have to ...

The Guyana government on Monday announced that Audrey Jardine-Waddell has been removed from the post of Director-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and that the post is scrapped and replaced by a Permanent Secretary. The new Permanent Secretary of the Foreign Ministry is Charlene Phoenix who has been appointed from 2nd December, 2019. Phoenix, who joined the Foreign Ministry ...

by GHK Lall The Hon. Minister of Natural Resources, Mr. Raphael Trotman, MP, has now spoken a little more about what could have—perhaps, should have—been negotiated, finalized, and executed at the time with the now standing, sacrosanct ExxonMobil contract, and all of its troubling terms. Mr. Trotman is on the money on a few things about that contract, but I ...

by GHK Lall What is a manifesto, other than a collection of words and a rush of marketing messages? What is a manifesto, besides being a piece of paper made to mean something, especially that which the circumstances demand? Give the people what they want to hear, what sells, and the rest usually takes care of itself. As I see ...

by GHK Lall The opposition should be delighted with where it is positioned today, how it is well-poised for that decisive burst of perverse brilliance as the electoral finish line appears in sight. I would, too, given the circumstances of the competition, in view of its twisting and turning airlessness existence. For, as I see things, the opposition can conserve ...

The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has named January 10, 2020 as Nominations Day for parties to submit the names of candidates to contest the March 2, 2020 general elections. In a newspaper notice, GECOM asked political parties to apply for approval of their symbols no later than December 13, 2020 “to facilitate timely consideration by the commission and provide a ...