The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) on Thursday said parties which agree to join their lists to combine votes must decide beforehand how they will share any seats they win.
“Providing the combination (of parties) won seats in the National Assembly, an electoral quota needs to be established within the combination to determine how seats would be distributed therein.
“The electoral quota is determined by dividing the total number of valid votes received by the combination by the number of seats allocated to the combination,” GECOM said in a release.
In Guyana’s elections, the allocation of seats in the National Assembly is determined by dividing the total number of valid votes cast for all of the parties by 65 (which is the number of seats available in the National Assembly) to find the electoral quota of votes per seat.
If there are 650,000 valid votes cast, then a party needs to get 10,000 votes to get one seat. If there are 325,000 votes cast, then a party needs 5,000 votes to get a seat.
For joinder lists, GECOM clarified that the total votes received by each party in the combination are divided by the quota to determine the allocation of seats within the combination.
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In the case of a seat within the combination, the party with the largest number of surplus votes will get that unallocated seat. But if there is only one seat won by the combination, GECOM said that seat shall go to the Party that received the largest number of votes among all of the parties in the combination, pouring cold water on any plans to rotate a seat.
So let’s explain this with four parties that opt to join forces. They will be named the Orange party, the Purple party, the Pink party and the Blue Party.
Using the formula outlined by GECOM, let’s say the Orange Party got enough votes to garner six seats; the Purple, enough votes for three seats; the Pink, two seats, and the Blue, just one seat.
If the parties decided beforehand that they would split the seats evenly- that is, an electoral quota of 25% for each party- that would mean that the 12 seats amassed by the four parties by be divided by 25%. Resultantly, each party would get four seats.
This decision came after major contention with the last three parties- ANUG, LJP and TNM- that joined their list to contest the 2020 elections.
But that’s not all.
GECOM also said each party in the joinder retains its own Representative and Deputy Representative for the purpose of the extraction of candidates to become members of the National Assembly. Therefore, it is only the Representative or Deputy Representative of the Party that is allocated seats who can do such extractions.
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