Holder also says that the Assembly should rethink the statutory composition of the commission, which she believes should be independent of the political influence that its current constitution permits.

The Constitution once stipulated that a member of GECOM would have to vacate his office three months after elections.

But this proviso was extracted during the Constitutional Reform Process and no new provisions were made for term limits for members of the commission.

"What the legislation has done, inadvertently, is put [the commissioners] there permanently," Holder told the Assembly in December during the parliamentary debate on the extension of local government elections.

"[The commissioners] were not intended to be in operation indefinitely, only for that period...[but] this is an error nobody has seen or wants to raise," she told Stabroek News recently.

Holder said before the 2001 General Elections the WPA tried to raise the issue but the then opposition leader Desmond Hoyte did not want to address the situation at that time. Now, what has even further complicated the situation, according to her, is the Carter Center formula, which informs the constitution of the commission.

The commission is made up of six members. Three represent the ruling party and three represent the opposition parties represented in the National Assembly. The current Commission is constituted by three members who represent the government, two who represent the main opposition PNCR and one other member who was then nominated by The United Force, which had a seat in Parliament at the time.

But Holder points out that because of the permanency of the commissioners' tenure, parties like ROAR and the GAP\WPA coalition, which have seats in Parliament are not represented on the commission.

"The Carter Center Formula has served its time and should not be kept. But of course, like everything else, that is wishful thinking..." Holder observed.

Although it has been said that the absence of any limit on the term of the commissioners was intended to protect them from the whims and fancies of any political leader and in fact would imbue them with the confidence to perform their duties impartially, Holder disagrees.

She considers that a commission that is representative of the Parliamentary parties may not be entirely ideal as the officers are all answerable to their political principals.

Holder thinks that space must be ceded for civil society as in a true democracy the commission should be independent of all politicians who now are part of what she calls a tyrannical arrangement based on proportionality.

"We have a highly politicised elections commission, and accountability, as far as the elections are concerned, has been put on the back burner," she says.

One of the instances she cited relates to election campaign finances. Under the Representation of the People Act, parties contesting elections are supposed to submit to the Chief Elections Officer, a return and declaration of elections expenses. That is all money, securities and equivalent of money received for the management of the election.

Holder says no party has done so since the WPA did in 1992, when they were actually criticised by the other parties for this.