Elections Commission explores media monitoring partnership with ERC

With a history of racial strife, election stakeholders are gearing up to act quickly if there is any incitement of racial division during the election season leading up to March 2, 2020.

The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has charged the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) to prepare a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a partnership to be had between the two, according to Commissioner Vincent Alexander. The ERC had recently met with the Commission.

Alexander approached reporters after GECOM’s latest statutory meeting yesterday, at GECOM’s Kingston headquarters, where he stated that the likely partnership will concern GECOM’s media monitoring division.
It is to be noted, however, that all commissioners are not in agreement with the partnership.

Alexander said that there are provisions of the Constitution and the Representation of the People Act which suggest that there should be collaboration between the two Commissions on the matter of media monitoring, with a specific focus on ethnic relations.

The Act speaks extensively of the ERC’s role in fighting back at racial violence and division, including that it prohibits anyone to make or causes to be made or published, statements which can result in racial or ethnic violence or hatred among the people. That law would see an offender being imprisoned for two years, and charged one hundred thousand dollars.

Outside of GECOM, the Guyana National Broadcasting Authority (GNBA) is exploring an offer from the European Union (EU) which could see the organization giving additional monitoring support to GNBA during election season. The EU is currently inspecting the broadcasting landscape to determine whether citizens have access to easy information, specifically with television, radio and cable broadcasting.