Two days after President Dr. Irfaan Ali announced that the 2025 General and Regional Elections will be held on September 1, GECOMS’ Commissioners are divided on the body’s readiness.
Vincent Alexander, Charles Corbin, and Desmond Trotman, the Opposition-nominated Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Commissioners, do not believe that the body would be ready to conduct elections by September 1.
Furthermore, at a press conference on Tuesday, the opposition-nominated commissioners stated that they were not involved in the decision for the elections date.
“While recognising that it is the President’s prerogative to determine the election date, it is crass for him to have done so based on the purported chairman’s guidance which clearly misrepresented the Chief Election Officer’s projected date of September 22, 2025 and the fact that even the proposed date was still under consideration and not yet agreed,” Commissioner Vincent Alexander said.
According to Alexander, at the last meeting of the seven-member commission on May 20, 2025, the September 22 date was still being discussed. Another meeting scheduled for May 22 was postponed.
The opposition-commissioners claimed that they were only informed of the September 1 date when President Irfaan Ali made his announcement at Guyana’s Independence celebrations. And on Monday afternoon, they said a revised work plan for the elections was sent to the commissioners.
The commissioners claim that GECOM has crafted a new work plan to match a commitment given by the Chairman, Justice retired Claudette Singh to the President.
“GECOM has crafted a new work plan to facilitate the undertaking that the Chairperson seemed to have given the President a cursory review of that plan suggests that changes have been made to timelines in the plan to reduce the previously estimated timeframe by 21 days.
“Those changes have affected the timelines traditionally used for claims and objections, submission of candidates among other requirements and even statutory deadlines as in the instance of the time provided for appeals for parties in relation to the list of nominees,” Alexander explained.
The new work plan reportedly reduces the claims and objections period from 21 days to just 5 days, and cut the candidate preparation period before Nomination Day from 30 days to 4 days.
He also reminded reporters of the opposition’s calls for biometrics at the polls. However, it has been said that there is no constitutional of legal requirement for biometric fingerprinting identification at polls. Even so, Alexander said the proposal was “confronted with spurious arguments about legality the need for legislation intervention and the inadequacy of time for meaningful attention to be paid to the issue in time for the impending 2025 elections.”
PPP-nominated Commissioner Sase Gunraj disagreed with many of the assertions made and posited that GECOM would be ready for elections on September 1.
“I did indicate that the Constitution provides generally for elections to be held within 90 days, and I believe the naming of the date by the President exceeds 90 days. So I have every confidence that it can be done and done effectively in that time,” Gunraj told reporters outside of GECOM’s Headquarters on Georgetown.
He added, “Three months is more than adequate for the holding of elections.”
Gunraj also explained that GECOM has two mandates: one for registration and another for holding elections, and reaffirmed that setting a date lies within the President’s prerogative.
“We now have a work plan to consider in that regard. I have no difficulty considering that work plan to ensure it accords with the date set by the President,” Gunraj said.
The post ELECTIONS 2025: GECOM Commissioners clash on readiness for Sept. 1 polls appeared first on News Room Guyana.
