Chairman of the A Partnership of National Unity and Opposition Leader, Aubrey Norton today announced that the APNU has filed Court action to postpone or altogether stop the local government elections scheduled for 12th June, amid allegations of fraud, concerns the party have with the Guyana Elections Commission, the current voters list and other issues.

During his party’s press conference today, Mr. Norton said lawyers approached the Court yesterday with the party’s application, detailing why the elections should not go ahead under the current circumstances.

“We filed yesterday a court action seeking to wither postpone or stop the Local Government Elections. As a far as I gather from the lawyers, we have 28 May date fixed for this matter. We also have other pending legal action that we will take to deal with this issue. But as it stands, on the question of manipulation of boundaries and other things we have already filed and we will continue to file legal action to deal with these issues,” Mr. Norton said.

Mr. Norton said the action by the party was forced by the unwillingness of GECOM to address the concerns raised by the APNU relating to alleged cases of fraud uncovered with several nominations for the upcoming elections.
Norton said the Elections Commission cannot outsource its responsibility of ensuring free and fair elections to the Court or the Police. He believes the Commission must take action to prevent questionable elections.

“GECOM as presently composed, chaired and mismanaged, does not have the competence, integrity, attitude, foresight and vision to deliver free, fair and credible elections in Guyana—elections that can win the trust and confidence of the Guyanese public and all contesting groups and parties. Fixing the Guyana elections Commission should begin now,” the Opposition Leader said.

But even as the party is hoping that the elections will be stopped, it will continue to campaign in areas where it is contesting.
GECOM was late last year forced to push back the elections, which was initially slated for March 13.

The preparation process was derailed after GECOM was forced to reopen the Claims and Objections process while dealing with a dispute over the demarcation of constituencies.

A legal challenge was mounted by the Opposition APNU to contest the manner in which the lists were extracted for constituencies.

The move to the Court saw a recommendation from the Chief Election Officer Vishnu Persaud to the GECOM Chair for a further period of claims and objections to the various registers.

GECOM has since indicated that it is now ready to move ahead with the elections.

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