April 7 is Nomination Day

… calls for respectful political speeches, rhetoric during run-up to May 11 polls

By Sunita Samaroo, March 12, 2015 | By KNews | Filed Under News, Source

With General and Regional Elections inching closer, the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) yesterday announced April 7 as Nomination Day. All political parties that intend to contest the May 11 polls must submit their respective lists of candidates.

Representatives of the various political

parties at the meeting yesterday

The date was revealed by GECOM’s Chairman, Dr. Steve Surujbally, at the opening ceremony of a sensitization meeting that saw representatives of at least 12 political parties converging at the GECOM Head Office.

It was there, too, that the GECOM Head, who noted that the campaign season has started, made an appeal for political combats in this pre-elections season to be done with the highest level of campaign decorum.

The electoral body reported that preparations for elections are well underway with Nomination Day being designated for the political parties to formally submit their list of candidates to the electoral body. As is customary, this will occur at City Hall, Avenue of the Republic, Georgetown.

Yesterday’s meeting was aimed at sensitizing the players to the political sphere about the technical and other mandatory requirements that need to be met on or before Nomination Day to pave the way for them to constitutionally contest the elections.

Representatives of A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC), People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), the Independent Party, Guyana National Congress, Theocracy Party, Liberation Party, Guyana Small Man Part, and Organisation for the Victory of the People were observed to be listening diligently as GECOM’s high officials addressed them.

In his address, the GECOM Chairman reminded that the conduct of elections which are to be fair, transparent and acceptable to the electorate and to the international community is in consonance with the spirit of the constitution of Guyana.

He said that every activity that the electoral body undertakes is within those confines.

Surujbally told the gathering that the electoral body will not step outside of its boundaries, even though it is often tempted to do so. The GECOM Chairman said elections carried out in an environment of peace would allow for the empowerment of the members of the electorate.

“It is their fundamental human right to elect a government of their choice and you know that political campaigning has already begun. It probably began even before the date of elections was announced,” Dr. Surujbally remarked.

In this vein, the GECOM Head appealed for political combats in this pre-elections season to be done with the highest level of campaign decorum. He made a request for all contesting parties “to ensure that their political speeches and rhetoric remain respectful at all times”.

“I believe that the days of ‘bradarism’ in political campaign had been over,” he said, particularly since political parties had maturely signed onto GECOM’s code of conduct at the last elections in 2011.

Earlier this week, one political party came in for severe criticisms owing to statements made at the launching of its campaign. Many of the opposing parties had bemoaned statements made by longstanding leaders of the party, describing the speech as ‘racial incitement’.

A well-known representative of one of the leading Opposition parties that took umbrage to the statements said that they intend to write GECOM and other local and international agencies as it relates to the statements made.

Surujbally recalled that while there were deviations from the guidelines, political parties had adhered to the code to a large extent and noted that he would be disheartened to see political parties revert to what had occurred prior to 2011.

He said that the elections body intends to review the code of conduct and make changes to strengthen the weakness identified, and will disseminate the new and improved version to contesting parties no later than Nomination Day.

“I think that political parties have in fact grown more mature over the years. With the tenets that are in that Code of Conduct, the tenets that are in the legislation, there are always representing our guiding principles and GECOM is continuously committed to manage the processing governing the conduct of such elections in accordance to the constitution and other statutory requirements,” he said.

“In following those principles, we expect that we treat it with dignity and respect.”

He defended the integrity of GECOM and said more respect needed to be shown for the work the body does. The Chairman said that Guyanese and the international community were very trustful and had a lot of confidence in GECOM and stands ready to rebuke anyone who tries to blemish GECOM’s work.

The Chairman and his Chief Elections Officer (CEO), Keith Lowenfield, are hopeful that the elections will be conducted in an environment of peace. He appealed for all political parties to support such efforts.

Addressing the gathering, Lowenfield explained that yesterday’s activity was statutory.

“The law requires of us, as the body, and you, as representatives of political parties, to ensure the processes required, every step of the way, are followed to the letter of the law,” Lowenfield remarked.

The gathering heard that GECOM has already concluded their claims and objections exercise during which they were able “to garner 3800 new persons on board and concluded with approximately 6900 conducting transfer transactions.”

This Lowenfield deduced to mean “that the nation is responding to our request to be involved in all the processes required for the efficient conduct of elections. Today marks another step in that process where parties need to know, need to understand so they can efficiently operationalise these processes going forward.”

“It will no doubt, in our view, minimize the likely errors contained in submissions for nominations day in the first instance so that the period for corrections will be a smooth one, should there be any,” Lowenfield ended.

Guyana’s constitution mandates that every contesting political party must submit each of the Lists of Candidates on Nomination Day, one National Top-Up List, at least six Geographical Constituencies’ Lists and the Regional Democratic Councils’ Lists that the given party may seek to contest on Nomination day.

The various Lists of Candidates must comprise registered voters who are eligible to be elected as members of the National Assembly. One third of the Candidates validly nominated must be female.

Over the past weeks two new parties signaled that they would be interested in taking part in the upcoming elections. They include the Independent Party led by Social Activist Mark Benschop, and The Healing the Nation Theocracy Party led by Ras Leon Saul.

Recently, too, two of the leading opposition parties, A Partnership of National Unity (APNU) and Alliance for Change joined forces to contest the elections.

In 60 days, Guyanese will head to the polls to elect national leaders. The agency’s current Preliminary List of Electors (PLE) stands at 567,125.