Guyana’s electoral credibility has been thrown into fresh crisis, as former Georgetown Mayor Ubraj Narine and a broad coalition of several prominent civil society organisations launched damning accusations against the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), accusing it of operating outside the boundaries of the Constitution during the 2025 General and Regional Elections.
In a sharp critique that echoes growing national concern, Narine declared that Guyana’s democracy stands at a dangerous crossroads, undermined by a bloated and unconstitutional voters’ list that continues to facilitate fraud, disenfranchisement, and public mistrust.
“Unless this issue is addressed, our nation will continue to be plagued with distrust, controversy, and the erosion of faith in the very system that is supposed to protect the will of the people,” Narine wrote in his op-ed today.
At the heart of Narine’s argument is a simple but critical constitutional fact: the law draws a clear distinction between who is eligible to vote in General Elections and who may vote in Regional and Local Government Elections. Yet, according to both Narine and civil society groups, GECOM continues to ignore this legal boundary.
Citing Article 59 of the Constitution, Narine emphasised:
“Only citizens of Guyana are entitled to vote in General Elections.”
That position is reinforced by Article 159(3) which explicitly states:
“No person shall vote at an election of members of the National Assembly unless he is a citizen of Guyana.”
Narine pointed to GECOM’s continued use of a consolidated voters’ list that mixes Guyanese citizens with Commonwealth nationals, effectively allowing ineligible non-citizens to vote in elections meant solely for Guyanese nationals—a direct constitutional violation, he argues.
“By maintaining one consolidated voters’ list, Commonwealth citizens are mixed with Guyanese citizens, creating the very real risk that ineligible persons may be allowed to vote in General Elections. That is unconstitutional, unlawful, and deeply dangerous for our democracy,” Narine warned.
Civil Society Echoes the Alarm: “GECOM Has Broken the Law”
Narine’s concerns are not isolated. In a September 3, 2025 joint statement, a coalition of eleven prominent civil society organisations issued a direct call for an urgent investigation into GECOM’s actions, asserting that the Commission breached the Constitution by allowing individuals who are not “domiciled”—that is, not permanently resident—in Guyana to vote.
They grounded their demand in the constitutional text:
Article 59: “Every person may vote… if he or she is of the age of eighteen years or upwards and is either a citizen of Guyana or a Commonwealth citizen domiciled and resident in Guyana.”
Article 159(b): “[A] Commonwealth citizen who is not a citizen of Guyana and who is domiciled and resident in Guyana and has been so resident for a period of one year immediately preceding the qualifying date.”
The groups also cited the Oxford Dictionary definition of domicile as “a place of permanent residence,” emphasizing that GECOM’s inclusion of transient or non-resident Commonwealth citizens on the Official List of Electors (OLE) was a flagrant violation of electoral law.
“We cannot allow elections built on illegality to stand unchallenged,” the civil society groups asserted.
PPP Flip-Flops on Electoral Reform and Voter Integrity
Narine also exposed the People’s Progressive Party’s (PPP) strategic about-face on voter list reform. When the PPP lost the 2015 election, then-Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo was among the loudest voices demanding a clean and credible voters’ list. Yet, upon returning to power in 2020, the PPP became the biggest obstacle to the very reforms it once championed.
The PPP-led government blocked constitutional reform to enable a new registration process, resisted the implementation of biometric voter identification, and refused to allow GECOM to cleanse the OLE—a list that now includes 757,690 registered voters, even though Guyana’s total population is approximately 780,000.
Narine stressed that this bloated list has opened the door to fraud, impersonation, and double voting, all while undermining the supremacy of the Constitution and faith in the democratic process.
“The consequences of such negligence are enormous,” he warned. “It opens the door to electoral confusion, fraud, and results that may not reflect the true will of the Guyanese people.”
A Nation at Risk
Civil society and political voices like Narine are now calling for two separate registers of electors: one for Guyanese citizens eligible to vote in both General and Local Elections, and one for Commonwealth citizens, valid only for Local Elections.
“This simple administrative change will close the door to fraud, strengthen the credibility of our elections, and restore confidence in our democratic process,” Narine stated.
The overarching concern is- if Guyana continues to conduct elections on a foundation that violates its own Constitution, then no election—no matter how peaceful—can ever be considered legitimate.
“Democracy only works when it is anchored in law and fairness,” Narine declared. “If our voters’ list is unconstitutional, then every election built on it is compromised.”
