The Civil Society Forum is urging President Granger to set a date for general elections in Guyana as soon as possible since there is no Constitutional support behind any decision to give effective power to the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) with regard to it determining when general elections should be held in Guyana.
In a release to the media on Monday, the CSF stated that if this is what President Granger intends to do or has now done then such an action would revive the “misgivings and insecurities” generated by the controversial selection of the current Chair of a “polarized GECOM” who now has the casting vote on when elections will be held.
“Rather than identify the specific technical or administrative tasks whose ‘unreadiness’ is inhibiting announcement of a date for elections, the President located ‘unreadiness’ in the disagreements among GECOM Commissioners. This was made clear when the President spelt out the tasks as “going back to the drawing board to examine how quickly and how easily they could arrive at a consensual position; merge the various approaches; and ensure that the preparations for elections, which have already started. Once these are completed “we could have an agreement as quickly as possible,” the release said.
According to the CSF, since GECOM comprises of persons chosen by the two major political parties then assigning a problem that the two party leaders cannot resolve to their selected acolytes in GECOM seems intended more to evade than resolve the issue.
The CSF believes that deferring the exercise of Presidential responsibility to set the date for elections to such a time as GECOM determines its own readiness is unacceptable.
“The constitutions mandates GECOM to be ready within ninety days and there is no provision that allows the President to amend that provision as a pretext for not announcing a date for national election,” the release added.
