House in united vote despite reservations

By Patrick Denny
Stabroek News
April 11, 2000


In a process that lasted just under 40 minutes, during which 48 of the 53 elected members present were polled twice, the National Assembly yesterday approved the Constitution (Amendment) Bill 2000 by a 48:0 vote, despite representatives of the two smaller opposition parties expressing reservations about aspects of the Bill.

The Bill, when assented to, will allow for the establishment of the seven-member Elections Commission and is one of the first steps, according to Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Reepu Daman Persaud, towards complying with the Herdmanston Accord deadline for holding the elections by January 17, 2001.

In the presentations on the Bill, there was some disagreement about whether it establishes a permanent Elections Commission or a permanent Elections Commission secretariat. Persaud said the commission would be immutable, but Alliance for Guyana parliamentarian, Dr Rupert Roopnaraine, said that Carter Center-model on which it was based gave it a built-in impermanence. The United Force leader, Manzoor Nadir, was of the opinion that other legislation was needed to establish the permanency of the secretariat.

Lance Carberry, a PNC frontbencher, in a rather brief presentation, said that his party supported the Bill.

But Dr Roopnaraine, who is a member of the OSC, despite expressing his party's support for the legislation, expressed disappointment that the Bill gave the responsibility for the appointment of elections officials to what he described as a political commission.

He noted that the Constitution Reform Commission (CRC) had provided the National Assembly with two options from which to choose and confessed that despite his efforts he had failed to persuade his colleagues on the Special Select Committee not to give this responsibility to the Elections Commission.

Dr Roopnaraine recalled that he had argued that "for as long as we have the political commission - the commission that we do have - in charge of the appointment of staff you were likely to run in to difficulties because in my own view it is better to have the people who are doing the umpiring not be the players themselves."

He likened the arrangement in the Bill on this issue to that used during his boyhood days when umpires for a cricket match were provided by the opposing teams.

"It still remains my view that the Elections Commission would have been in a position of greater neutrality to preside over this highly contentious problem if in fact it was the political parties who were refereeing the game."

He observed too that the Bill did not succeed in establishing a permanent commission in any sense of the term as he understood it, but had succeeded in transferring the concept of permanence to the secretariat, which would go beyond parliaments from time to time.

"...For as long as we adhere to the so-called Carter formula and provide what is in essence a political commission ... we have a built-in impermanence because, of course, the commission must theoretically and practically be changed with every new parliament."

This remark struck a raw nerve on the government benches, drawing responses from both Persaud, who piloted the bill through the second and third readings and Information Minister Moses Nagamootoo who chairs the Oversight Committee (OSC) which agreed on the provisions of the Bill.

When he introduced the Bill, Persaud said that the important provisions were those related to the procedure for declaring the results of the election for the presidency; the redesignation of the minority leader as the leader of the opposition and for the parliamentary opposition to elect the leader of the opposition, rather than that person being appointed by the President as is currently provided for in the Constitution.

He also referred to the composition of the quorum which is five for ordinary meetings and four for a reconvened meeting necessitated by the lack of quorum at the initial meeting. Persaud explained that a reconvened meeting of the commission would have to be convened within two calendar days of the original meeting. But if the original meeting had been called for the purpose of declaring results of elections, the meeting would have to be held on the following day.

He noted that the Bill had the blessings of all the parties represented on the OSC and complimented all those involved in the process for working beyond the call of duty which they are discharging in a very patriotic manner.

Persaud when he wound up the debate on the bill referred to the functions of the commission as provided for under Article 162(1)(a) which gave it responsibility for exercising general supervision and control over the electoral process.

Nagamootoo when he rose to support the Bill pointed out that "it was unfair to categorise the Elections Commission as conceived in this Bill as an umpire of political players because the Elections Commission under the Constitution under Article 162 is charged with the general supervision and control of the electoral process."

As a consequence he said it "must recruit those under its command to carry out the work of elections. "The idea of a permanent secretariat was accepted but it was not a secretariat that would supersede the powers of the Elections Commission from which it owed its existence."

Nagamootoo also sought to dispel the notion that there had been some mischief afoot because the drafters could not have got it right after the first meeting with the task force which prepared the drafting brief.

He said that the process allowed for a full ventilation of the various opinions and at the OSC meeting on Thursday, the draft was reviewed clause by clause. Nadir too commenting on the issue of permanency recalled that in his very first presentation to the National Assembly he had urged the establishment of a permanent elections office which would be responsible for updating the voters' list and facilitating the holding of elections whenever they were called.

The TUF leader said he was disappointed that the legislation did not deal with the permanency of the secretariat, explaining that "every time we have to go through this issue of putting a secretariat in place for elections, it costs in the vicinity of US$5 million.

"It is time that we bring a certain degree of trust and start working in building the institutions that can withstand the pressures and the speed of the twenty-first century."

Nadir stressed the need to bring legislation to accomplish this as quickly as the present legislation had been brought to the parliament, citing the divergence in opinion already as to how this office should be.

He said that in the budget the government had allocated $1 billion; the present Elections Commission secretariat had circulated a budget in excess of $1.5 billion to cater for a referendum, local government elections and the general elections; and the European Union-funded Needs Assessment Mission had presented a budget for in excess of $2 billion for which there was as yet no firm commitment. "Unless we can deal with this institutional issue of permanency we will have problems of funding."

Nadir cited the need for other subsidiary legislation dealing with the preparation of an annual voters' list (allowing persons, once they have attained the age of 18 to have their names placed on the voters' list and be issued with the appropriate identification) to be brought to the House. "These things can't wait until after the elections. They have to be put in place now so that we can be ready for any elections whenever they are called."

After the Bill was approved by the Assembly, Persaud asked that the members be polled, explaining that this was necessary, as it was the Bill amending the Constitution. This was done after the third reading as well.