‘GECOM has to be ready to hold elections on time’ – Jagdeo

Vice President Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo said Thursday that he expects the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to be ready to hold elections when they are constitutionally due next year.

“We want elections to be held on time,” Jagdeo, the General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C), said at his weekly party press conference.

He, however, noted that the elections body has to be prepared to hold elections after the President declares which day next year they will be held.

“GECOM has to be ready.

“They should’ve been ready by March 2 (2025) because that’s when elections were but I actually said August because that’s when the President was sworn in.

“They have to be ready by that time to say to the President that you can call elections whenever you wish, so that’s really eight months away,” Jagdeo added.

The last General and Regional Elections were held in March 2020. The PPP/C was officially declared the winner in August 2020, five months later, after several attempts to derail the elections.

Dr. Irfaan Ali was then sworn-in as President and Parliament was convened after that.

With elections on the horizon, Jagdeo knocked efforts to stall the process. He said calls for the introduction of biometric systems from the opposition are among those meant to stall the elections.

These calls have been viewed as tactics to delay and possibly, disrupt the constitutionally- due election. It is also believed that these calls may be linked to efforts to spur claims for a transitional government.

“They are hoping to kill that timeline and then they will call for a transitional government,” Jagdeo said, nothing that this is a trap the PPP/C will not fall for,

And he emphasised the governing PPP/C administration expects elections to be properly carried out on time.

“We want the elections to be held on time, we want international observers to be here, we want all dead people to be removed from the (voters’) list, we want the political parties to put robust political agents in the polling places, we want full compliance with the (Representation of the People Act), we want the (Statements of Poll) to be published before the tabulations, all of that we want,” he said.