The Guyana Elections Commission today confirmed that the rules governing joinder lists do not provide for the rotation of a Parliamentary seat among the joinder parties. The party with the most votes in such arrangement should occupy the seat, GECOM said.

GECOM was forced to address this matter after the leader of The New Movement, Dr. Asha Kissoon, refused to give up the Parliamentary seat to make way for the representative from ANUG to take up the seat in the last parliament. Mr. Lenox Shuman from the LJP had made way for Dr. Kissoon. The three parties had joined their lists and merged their votes after the 2020 General Elections.

The release by GECOM confirmed a misapplication of the rules governing the joinder list. It is the same information that was passed on to the Commission by its former Legal Officer Kurt DaSilva.

According to GECOM, to calculate seat distribution among the Parties involved in joinder of lists, the valid votes across for all of the Lists in the combination are added together.

The Commission explained that before ascertaining the allocation of seats within the combination, a determination needs to be made whether the combination won seats in the National Assembly.

The Commission said once that has been established, the allocation of seats in the National Assembly is determined by dividing the total number of valid votes cast for all of the contesting Lists of Candidates by 65 to find the electoral quota of votes per seat.

GECOM said providing that the combination won seats in the National Assembly, an electoral quota needs to be established within the combination to determine how seats would be distributed.

The electoral quota is determined by dividing the total number of valid votes received by the combination by the number of seats allocated to the combination.

“The total votes received by each party in the combination are divided by the quota to determine the allocation of seats within the combination. In the case of a seat within the combination, the party with the largest number of surplus votes will get that unallocated seat. In the case of only one seat having been won by the combination, that seat shall go to the Party that received the largest number of votes among all of the parties in the combination,” GECOM said in a statement.

In addition, GECOM explained that each party in the joinder retains its own Representative and Deputy Representative for the purpose of extraction of candidates to become Members of the National Assembly. On that basis, it explained that only the Representative or Deputy Representative of the Party(ies) that are allocated seats, can do such extractions.

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