GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC – The opposition coalition, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), Tuesday said it supports the statement issued by the Guyana Elections Commission’s (GECOM) that all stakeholders in the September 1, general and regional elections have a statutory duty and civic responsibility to contribute to the polls being conducted in a free, fair, transparent, and credible manner.
“We therefore urge all Guyanese electors not to be tempted to break the law and risk fines and imprisonment for any bribe waved in their faces by those who believe that popularity could be bought,” the APNU said in a statement.
In its call on Monday, GECOM said it was taking the opportunity to indicate that it is an offence for any person, including the voter himself, to communicate at any time to any person, any information about the political party for which any voter has voted on his behalf or as a proxy on behalf of another voter.
“Similarly, it is an offence for anyone to influence, by any means, a voter to display his ballot paper, to make known the political party for whom he has voted on his behalf, or as a proxy,” GECOM said, adding that it is also an offence for any person, directly or indirectly, to offer any money, gift, and/or a loan, to any voter to secure the vote of any voter at the elections.
“Any person who commits any of the above offences shall be liable on summary conviction to pay a fine and to imprisonment for six months,” GECOM said, adding that “persons convicted for any of the above offences may also be prohibited from participating in future elections”.
The APNU, which includes the main opposition People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR), is also calling for special phone numbers that members of the public could call to report allegations of electoral fraud.
“We hereby also advise GECOM and the Guyana Police Force to set up hot lines where persons can anonymously report these and other incidents of electoral fraud,” APNU said, adding that it also wants GECOM to aggressively inform voters that they should not use their cell phones to take pictures of their marked ballots as evidence of which party they voted for to collect payment from his or her briber.
APNU said GECOM should ensure that the public is informed that photographs and the use of cameras are prohibited in the polling place and that GECOM’s latest press release “omits this vital bit of information.”
The opposition coalition group has also appealed to the five other political parties that are contesting the September 1 general and regional elections to support its call, noting that if they “are interested in free and credible elections, they should have no difficulty in publicly endorsing these and other measures to maintain the secrecy of the ballot”.
GECOM said that a total of seven political parties have submitted their lists of candidates to contest the upcoming elections, which several national, regional, and international observers will monitor.
The incumbent President Irfaan Ali is seeking a second and final term. He is one of four candidates contesting the position of President during the elections. The others are the incumbent, Irfaan Ali of the ruling People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), Aubrey Norton of the main coalition, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), Nigel Hughes of the Alliance for Change (AFC), and Azruddin Mohamed of the We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) political party.
The results of the last elections were not known almost five months later, following various court challenges and allegations of irregularities. Several former GECOM officials are before the courts on election-related charges.
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