Chairwoman of the Guyana Election Commission (GECOM), Claudette Singh stood ten toes down on her decision to vote with the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/C) commissioners to not allow Azruddin Mohamed’s We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) party to use the mighty jaguar as its symbol.
Because her decision to vote in this direction lacked merit, logic and reason, the suggestion was made to have GECOM “seek judicial review”. But a resolute Singh retorted that the court can be approached by interested parties.
This is the account of long serving GECOM commissioner, Vincent Alexander as conveyed during an interview with Guyana Standard and a letter to the editor. Alexander said that while a meeting is to be convened on Tuesday to decide on symbols, GECOM discussed the WIN symbol today to determine the guiding principle.
However, in arriving at the decision to reject the symbol, Alexander said that GECOM has once again demonstrated its ineptitude, and probably its bias.
Alexander said that Singh specifically stated that based on Article 7 of the Constitution: “It is the duty of every citizen of Guyana wherever he or she may be and of every person in Guyana to respect the national flag, the coat of arms, the national anthem, the national pledge and the Constitution of Guyana, and to treat them with due and proper solemnity on all occasions”.
However, her contention is that the image of the jaguar is a part of the Coat of Arms, and as a consequence, it cannot be used as a symbol.
In his letter, Alexander noted, “Without any reference to the solemnity of the use of the jaguar as a symbol, it is beyond reason or logic for the Chair to have concluded that an element of the Coat of Arms, to wit the ‘jaguar’ is what the Constitution meant when it specified the Coat of Arms, among other national symbols.
“If an element was meant, then there is much to be undone, since other elements of the Coat of Arms, such as the pick-axe, the Canje Pheasant and Victoria Regia, among others, are frequently used by various organizations, including political parties, and on various occasions.”
He noted that the decision was made against the background of the government appointed commissioners’ attribution of intellectual property rights of the image of the jaguar to the Amerindians, purportedly in keeping with the provisions of international conventions, and the arguments presented by indigenous leaders Lennox Shuman and Derrick John in their letters to the commission. Alexander believes that the attribution effectively bastardized the concept of intellectual property, the core of which is the originality of an idea or invention.
He said that Article 149G (Indigenous peoples shall have the right to protection, preservation and promulgation of their languages, cultural heritages and way of life) was also referenced. “However, the connection between the image of the jaguar and “languages, cultural heritages and way of life was not exemplified”.
Alexander said that in the end , “GECOM once again resorted to the power of numbers, rather than that of reason in making its 4/3 decision.”
