APNU urges GECOM to prohibit photographing in polling booth  

A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) has called on GECOM to ensure the public is informed that photographs and the use of cameras are prohibited in the polling place.

The Coalition, in a release, said GECOM’s latest press release omits this vital bit of information.

“We hereby also advise GECOM and the Guyana Police Force to set up hot lines where persons can anonymously report these and other incidents of electoral fraud. The other contesting political parties, which are interested in free and credible elections, should have no difficulty in publicly endorsing these and other measures to maintain the secrecy of the ballot. They should raise their voices now. Not only is the country’s democracy at stake, but its very soul,” the Coalition said.

GECOM, in a release yesterday titled “Obstructing the Secrecy of the Vote is an Offence,” warned that revealing how a person voted, influencing others to disclose their vote, or offering money or gifts for votes are unlawful.

The APNU noted that, as the GECOM press release emphasised, specific laws do exist in these regards—laws that are clear in their language and intent. Section 77(2) of the Representation of the People Act, for instance, prohibits (on pain of fines and imprisonment) any person from directly or indirectly inducing an elector to display his ballot after he or she has marked it. Likewise, Section 130 (on Bribery) outlaws a range of acts that reward an elector (by money, gift, and other valuables) for voting or for not voting.

Not only are those who directly or indirectly seek to buy votes guilty of the “corrupt practice of bribery”, but so too are those electors who accept such bribes. “We therefore urge all Guyanese electors not to be tempted to break the law and risk fines and imprisonment for any bribe waved in their faces by those who believe that popularity could be bought,” the release said.