Georgetown, Guyana – (March 8, 2019) President David Granger, this morning, met with the Chairman and Commissioners of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to examine ways and means of having credible elections in the shortest possible time as well as to seek guidance on the Commission’s needs.
“It appeared to the Government side that there are some differences. We did not feel that the differences are irreconcilable, but there needs to be a fresh search for agreement between the competing opinions in the Commission,” the President said in a statement after the conclusion of the meeting.
He said much attention was focused on the list of electors given that it is central to elections.
“We feel that elections are a normal part of democracy, but we don’t want any citizen to feel disenfranchised and it is evident from the evidence provided in the meeting this morning that the List is bloated… given the size of our population and much attention is focused on sanitising that List,” the President stated.
President Granger made it clear that Government did not receive “the sort of guidance that we need to enable me as President to make a proclamation to actually announce a date but we have kept the door opened and we have asked the Guyana Elections Commission to go back to the drawing board to examine how quickly and how easily they could arrive at an consensual position, merge the various approaches, ensure that the preparations for elections, which have already started continue and that we could have an agreement as quickly as possible.”
The Head of State made it clear that the meeting was productive and edifying thereby providing a basis for moving quickly towards having elections.
“The unfortunate thing of course, is that we do not have a date and I am confident that if the Guyana Elections Commission resolved or reconciled the different points of view, which exist in the Commission now, Guyanese could look forward to having elections at an early date as possible,” the President said.
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