Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) commissioner Desmond Trotman said on Wednesday that any attempt to alter how commissioners are appointed should be decided in court this comment comes after incoming opposition leader Azruddin Mohamed argued he should be able to nominate members.
Mohamed, leader of the We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) party, has argued his party deserves representation on GECOM now that it has replaced A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) as the country’s main opposition. He said the three opposition-nominated commissioners currently serving represent APNU’s interests, not WIN’s, and that his party had no contact with them during the election period.
Trotman, who spoke at a press conference of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) in his capacity as a party member, fielded a question on the electoral body. He said Mohamed “has a right to state what he believes is right,” but stressed that “a decision of that magnitude could only be addressed, I believe, at the level of the courts.”
He added he was prepared to accept any ruling of the judiciary regarding his “future arrangement with GECOM.”
When pressed that the issue could also be raised directly with commissioners, Trotman said the matter should not be debated at a WPA forum but at a press conference of commissioners who could be affected by such an issue. “I do not ever speak at GECOM as a member of the Working People’s Alliance. I speak as a concerned person who wants to see free and fair elections prevail,” he said.
The seven-member commission comprises three nominees from the governing People’s Progressive Party (PPP), three from the opposition, and a chair selected by consensus between the president and opposition leader. The current chair, retired Justice Claudette Singh, was agreed in 2019 by then president David Granger and then opposition leader Bharrat Jagdeo.
Trotman, Vincent Alexander and Charles Corbin were nominated by the traditional main opposition APNU+AFC, who have since been replaced by WIN.
