GEORGETOWN, Guyana – September 8, 2025 – Elections Commissioner Vincent Alexander has unleashed one of his fiercest critiques yet of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), charging that its conduct of the September 1 polls not only failed to meet constitutional standards but also tilted the playing field in favor of the governing People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C).
Speaking on Nation Watch with host Mervyn Williams, Alexander accused GECOM of brushing aside repeated demands for biometric voter identification and a sanitized voters list, safeguards he argued were critical to ensuring credibility. Instead, he said, the list remained riddled with the names of deceased and migrated persons, a loophole that left the very foundation of the vote in question. “If you can’t be assured of one person, one vote, the system is eroded at its foundation,” Alexander declared.
The veteran commissioner, who has sat on the electoral body since 2007, went further, alleging that GECOM’s leadership had become indistinguishable from the governing party it is supposed to regulate. “The Commission has become, in practice, an extension of the People’s Progressive Party,” he charged, pointing to the rejection of biometric safeguards and the refusal to cleanse the voters list.
Alexander also raised legal red flags over the official declaration of results. He argued that GECOM’s public announcement did not satisfy the Representation of the People Act, which requires a full breakdown of votes and seats before publication in the Gazette. Without that, he said, the process is incomplete, and possibly unlawful.
For Alexander, the implications are dire. “This process, as conducted, cannot be deemed credible,” he said bluntly, warning that unless systemic reforms are put in place, Guyana will remain trapped in what he called a cycle of flawed elections that steadily erode public trust. He is now calling for a sweeping evaluation of GECOM’s operations before next year’s local government polls, insisting that reforms are no longer optional but essential.
His warning is clear: unless Guyana tackles the deep-rooted flaws in its electoral machinery, questions of credibility will continue to haunt its democracy, and every election will be a battle not just for power, but for trust itself.
