The Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) is stepping up its campaign to ensure that all political parties adhere to the stipulated code of conduct during this year’s elections campaign season.
Last Friday, the commission commenced a two-day workshop titled “Training for Part-time Media and Elections Campaign Monitors” at the Georgetown Club. The workshop’s objective was to train monitors to observe, and record the information being disseminated to the public at political meetings.
According to a Government Information Agency (GINA) release, ERC Chairman Bishop Juan Edghill stated that this is the first time the commission will conduct election campaign monitoring on such a large scale in Guyana.
He stated that the ERC believes that not only should the elections be “free and fair, but it should also be free of fear”. It is on this basis that the ERC has taken the initiative aimed at ensuring that political parties, in keeping with the Racial Hostility Act, do not “wilfully excite or attempt to excite hostility or ill-will against any section of the public or against any person on the grounds of their race.” The participants at the seminar are persons who applied for the post of media and elections campaign monitors. These include persons from across the country.
The ERC chairman outlined some of the regulations to which monitors would have to adhere once they fulfill the necessary requirements. The monitors, according to Edghill, must make their presence known at all political rallies and meetings etc, and they cannot be political activists or volunteers for organisers of any political group or party. He added that if there are such persons among the group, they would be asked to decline the position.
The monitors would be expected to attend all political rallies and meetings, after which they would be required to present written reports, in addition to recordings and any other relevant material, to the ERC. Edghill urged the monitors to maintain their integrity and that of the Commission, and act professionally at all times.
He cautioned the monitors against providing the recordings or any other material from the meetings to any political party or the media, as such materials should be provided only to the ERC.
