By Svetlana Marshall

Acting Chief Justice, Navindra Singh, will hand down his ruling on Friday in the Electoral Ballot Exclusion case, which was filed by a member of the Forward Guyana Movement, Krystal Fisher.

Fisher wants the High Court to block Monday’s General and Regional Elections until GECOM includes all political parties contesting the General Elections on the ballot papers in all Geographic regions.

The Forward Guyana Movement submitted Lists of Candidates for only seven of the ten electoral districts. However, it believes that having surpassed the minimum requirement of six geographic constituencies to contest in the elections, it should be eligible to contest the General Elections in all 10 Districts.

During today’s hearing of the case, the Attorney Vivian Williams, who is representing the Forward Guyana Movement member, repeated the party’s position, as he responded to the arguments mounted by the Elections Commission, and the Attorney General in the matter.

He told the Court that contrary to the submissions made by GECOM and the Attorney General, the Elections Commission’s “exclusionary practice” violates the rights of voters in Regions 7, 8, and 9 to vote under Article 59 of the Constitution.

He said it also breaches Articles 13 and 149 of the Constitution and the Representation of the People Act by undermining inclusionary democracy and restricting voters’ choice.

After the hearing, Dr. Williams told reporters that he believes he has a strong case against the Elections Commission, maintaining that its practice is unconstitutional.

“I am confident that the law stands on the side of the applicant. And, as I pointed out today, the real question is whether GECOM by virtue of the procedure that it is using, and has been using for these elections are resulting in elections that are inconsistent with what the Constitution expects, that it is inconsistent with the constitutional requirements and the principle object of democratic governance and process,” Williams said.

Attorney for the Guyana Elections Commission, Arudranauth Gossai, and the Attorney General Anil Nandlall have argued that Forward Guyana forfeited the opportunity to contest the General Elections in the three Regions, when it opted not to submit Lists of Candidates for the three Geographic Constituencies.

But Williams argued that it was not mandatory for FGM to contest in all 10 Regions.

“You cannot conceive an election in a country where whole regions don’t have an opportunity to vote. So, when you interpret the Constitution, when you interpret what elections are supposed to be, it must be elections that give equal opportunities for all of the citizens to have equal choice,” Williams said.

GECOM’s attorney argued that Fisher’s case is bad in law.

Mr. Gossai told reporters that the Constitution and the Representation of the People Act do not guarantee parties the right to contest the General Elections in all 10 Geographic Constituencies if they have met only minimum requirement.

“The law says, section 39 (A) 9 of ROPA [the Representation of the People Act] that for each Geographic Constituency, it must contain the Lists of political parties who are contesting. Contesting could only mean the parties who have submitted Lists for that Geographic Constituency. And if that wasn’t clear, I referred to a case from the CCJ which says what happens for example, the public may want to know and Forward Guyana Movement has argued, well we have a National Top-up List and because we have a National Top-up List it meants that we are contesting for the Presidency of the country, and so, you must put political parties name on the ballot paper for all 10 regions. But, that’s not how it works,” Gossai reasoned.

He said a vote for the Geographic Constituency and the General Elections is the same, and the two cannot be separated in the manner suggested by Fisher in her application.

He said by not submitting Lists of Candidates for the three Geographic Constituencies, FGM automatically disqualified itself from contesting in those Regions.

Attorney General, Anil Nandlall, also rejected the submissions made by Williams.

The Attorney General is confident that the application will be dismissed, arguing that it is misplaced.

“I have every confidence that we will prevail…The Forward Movement decided that they will not participate in three geographical constituencies – 7, 8, and 9. Maybe, they did so because they felt that they have limited resources, and they are going to concentrate on the other 7 regions, and maybe they have persuaded themselves that they can win those seven regions, and why risk losing them and use valuable resources in these three regions where they have a low likelihood of success. And they maybe right, those three regions only have 4 seats, the other 7 has 21 seats, perhaps they can win 21 seats, and win the geographic constituencies, so they could very well win the elections …but you can’t say because you didn’t contest it means that the people of that region is deprived of their right to vote,” the Attorney General said.

The Acting Chief Justice has set 2pm on Friday for the delivery of his decision in the matter that was filed just last week.

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