United States to field technical advisor to support GECOM 

The United States Government has committed support for Guyana’s upcoming General and Regional Elections in the form of systems being put in place to field a technical expert to assist the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).

This was revealed by US Ambassador to Guyana, Nicole Theriot, during an interview with reporters on the sidelines of an event at the Marriott Hotel in Georgetown on Thursday.

Ambassador Theriot noted that election support, including financial aid, is a high priority for her office. Noting that there is a lot to do ahead of the elections slated for later this year – likely in November – Ambassador Theriot said, “Our hope is that we’ll be able to embed an advisor – a chief technical advisor who is incredibly skilled and experienced in elections support – with GECOM to sit with them, to sit the Commissioners and the Chair and the CEO (Chief Elections Officer) to help them as they start to do more in terms of preparation for elections.”

The US diplomat went on to add, “Of course, we know they are already hiring people to work for the elections, but there is a lot that needs to happen before whenever elections happen, whether November or so. So, this person would just be an objective assistant advising GECOM on how to move forward in the various capacities, because there is a lot to do.”

According to Ambassador Theriot, the US places a lot of importance on ensuring Guyana’s democracy prevails.

Currently, the Donald Trump Administration has cut foreign aid for most countries, including Guyana, but the Ambassador said this impact is minimal, since Guyana did not have a lot of US-funded programmes.

While her office is yet to receive the funding, the US diplomat assured that elections support for Guyana would be prioritised.

“Right now, what they’ve asked us to do is prioritise the programmes that we would like waivers for. We would like all of our programmes to continue, but…an example of the high priority programme is our elections support…”

“So, we’ve requested that they give us, as quickly as possible, approval so that we can start that, because we wanna give assistance to GECOM and we want to spin up an elections observation mission, and we want to be as helpful as we can in Guyana’s democracy,” Ambassador Theriot has said.

The US had played a crucial role at the 2020 elections in ensuring Guyana’s democracy was not derailed, and had even issued visa sanctions on top officials in the country who had played a role in attempting to subvert the March 2, 2020 elections.

Those rigging attempts by the then A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Coalition Government to stay in power had resulted in a five-month political deadlock before the current People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Administration was finally declared the winner and sworn in to office on August 2, 2020.

Only back in October 2024, the ABCE diplomatic missions in Guyana – United States, Britain, Canada and the European Union – engaged GECOM on support for the upcoming polls.

At a subsequently press conference on November 22 last, Chief Elections Officer (CEO) Vishnu Persaud told reporters that the international development partners had agreed to respond to the needs of GECOM based on a needs assessment.

This publication has since been informed that the team had arrived and conducted the needs assessment, and its report is currently before the seven-member Elections Commission for review.

Previously, British High Commissioner to Guyana, Jane Miller, had also indicated the United Kingdom’s (UK’s) readiness to work with Guyana to avoid a recurrence of the 2020 events at this year’s polls.

The British diplomat, who only took up her posting in Guyana in 2021, had told this publication back in October that the UK Government is keen on ensuring, as it has in the past, free and fair elections in Guyana.

“The UK Government doesn’t want to see a repeat of 2020; and throughout the world, we’ve worked with countries on free and fair elections. And we’re doing the same here,” she stressed during an interview with this publication.

In preparation for next year’s polls, the UK diplomat had been engaging local stakeholders, including the Elections Commission.

“We’ve offered support and technical assistance to GECOM. We haven’t defined exactly what we’ll do yet, but we’re certainly in discussions. The UK is very keen to see what we can do to prevent what happened back in 2020. So we continue to have discussions, and we’re certainly here to support the country,” she has stated.

Asked what that support and technical assistance could look like, the British envoy posited that it would be what Guyana indicates it requires. In fact, she disclosed that there will be a needs assessment with the Guyana Government to ascertain the country’s needs.

“I’m keen that that support responds to Guyana’s needs. I don’t think it’s for me to say this is what they should be doing. So, we would do a needs assessment mission, where we’ll work with the Government to look at where their needs are, and see where they would really like our assistance. So, at this stage, I have not defined precisely the things that we’ll work on. We’ve seen the recommendations from previous observer missions and that provides a useful starting point, but it will be up to GECOM and others to come to us and say this is where they would like support,” High Commissioner Miller asserted, adding of the support it would require that she hopes GECOM is able to make that determination “very soon”.

The ABCE diplomatic missions in Guyana were at the time vocal in their calls for democracy to prevail and for the will of the Guyanese people to be respected.