
Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), retired Justice Claudette Singh has informed the Representative of the List of The New Movement party, Dr. Gerald Forde, that the Elections Commission is in no position to pronounce on his current status as Representative of The New Movement (TNM) List of Candidates.
“…Please be advised that GECOM is not in a position to pronounce on your current status in relation to being the Representative of the List of The New Movement Party,” Justice (Ret’d) Singh told Forde in a letter dated July 16, 2024.
Dr. Gearld Forde, who is an ex-TNM Executive, has been trying for months to assert his status as Representative of TNM’s List of Candidates, after a new representative was named by the party leader, Dr. Asha Kissoon, without proper procedures being followed in keeping with the Constitution and Electoral Laws.
Today, Dr. Forde told News Source that GECOM’s response comes as no surprise to him. He said the response speaks volume about the level of alleged corruption within the Elections Commission.
“I had an opinion that GECOM was very politically manipulated. It shows to me, the level of incompetence and corruption in GECOM because it is a very simple task for you to just go through your records, and see, who the Leader of the List was for your previous general elections. And, if anybody corrupted that process, to point out that corruption, and correct it. But, this just continues to prove that the entity needs a lot of reform,” Forde told News Source.
The Leader of TNM, Dr Asha Kissoon, who is currently clinging to the joinder seat in the National Assembly, had announced that Forde was replaced as Representative of the List of Candidates.
But Forde maintains that he has never resigned from the position, and the Elections Commission also has no record of the change.

In April, the GECOM Chairman was forced to withdraw a letter originally dispatched to Forde, after it was found that the Elections Commission had no record of TNM submitting documents regarding the change of the Representative of the List.
Given his position, Forde is questioning, under whose authority, Dr Kissoon was appointed to sit in Parliament on behalf of the joinder list.
Even as he awaited GECOM’s response, Forde dispatched a letter to the Speaker of the National Assembly, Manzoor Nadir in March, requesting that Dr Kissoon be recalled. However, the Speaker has not made any move to effect the request.
Pressed for answers on Monday, the Speaker told News Source that he prefers to remain silent.
Today, Dr. Gerald Forde said that position is not good enough.
“The corruption, and the incompetence, all these things extend, even to that arm of government because I sent a letter since March, and you are saying you have never seen it. The clerk has said he has never seen it, the speaker didn’t even want to comment on it. The letter is about you fulfilling your constitutional mandate, and you are saying you have never seen it,” Forde said.

The ex-TNM Executive said he will be consulting his lawyers on the next steps.
The New Movement is one of three small political parties that are occupying a single seat in the National Assembly on a rotational basis, as part of a joinder agreement. That agreement was signed ahead of the 2020 elections.
Under the agreement, the representative from the TNM, Dr. Asha Kissoon, should have only spent three months in the National Assembly, then make way for the representative from A New and United Guyana to take up the remaining time.
Dr. Kissoon has been in the Assembly for over a year, and has refused to honour the agreement and make way for the ANUG representative.
The Liberty and Justice Party was the first to occupy the seat, and surrendered the seat once the agreed time was over.
Like the Speaker of the National Assembly, the TNM Leader, Dr. Asha Kissoon, has chosen to remain silent on the issue.
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