LOCAL ELECTIONS IN 2007: MAYBE YES, MAYBE NO

C O N F I D E N T I A L GEORGETOWN 000445 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/07/2017 TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM GY SUBJECT: LOCAL ELECTIONS IN 2007: MAYBE YES, MAYBE NO Classified By: Ambassador David M. Robinson for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) ¶1. (U) Summary: Rhetoric about local elections, more than ten years overdue, is heating up. The ruling People's Progressive Party (PPP) wants them before the end of 2007; the opposition People's National Congress (PNC) wants a new voters list first. In the end, it may come down to what President Bharrat Jagdeo wants, and he is leaning toward a quick vote this year. Resident donors, including the U.S., Britain, Canada and the EU concur that voters need an oportunity soon to repopulate organs of local government, but without electoral and financial reform, municipal balloting amounts to little more than democratic window dressing. We should keep that in mind when the inevitable request for money help comes in. End summary. ¶2. (U) Guyana last held local elections in 1994; the constitution requires them every three years. In a recent letter to the Guyana Elections Commission, Donald Ramotar, head of the ruling PPP, demanded the lapse be fixed before the end of 2007. He further insisted on using the existing voters list, compiled in 2001, rather than wasting "another two years" conducting the door-to-door update the opposition PNC demands. ¶3. (U) PNC leader Robert Corbin pushed back, publicly accusing the PPP of bad faith for ignoring the recommendations of a bipartisan task force established to set conditions for the past due vote. He said the group's draft report proposed a number of reforms now pending legislative action, including new electoral and municipal financing mechanisms. He also rekindled the debate over the voters list, saying he only reluctantly accepted it for the national contest but would draw the line now. The list does not reflect Guyana's large out-migration, mainly of Indo-Guyanese PPP supporters, who the PNC wants off the list despite the absence of a legal mechanism to remove migrants from the rolls. Partisan bickering over the list nearly scuttled the 2006 presidential vote, and Corbin is demanding a revision before he commits the PNC to a new round. ¶4. (C) The DCM and Poloff met with PNC task force chair Vincent Alexander and later with PPP chair Clinton Collymore on May 4 and 5. Each deflected blame to the other for the current stalemate. Alexander said the group last met in January 2007 and failed to reach consensus on key issues. Slightly askew from party-mate Corbin's version, Alexander accused Collymore of sending an uncleared package of reforms to the legislature. Collymore spat back, saying the task force met regularly and achieved most of its goals, even agreeing on the reforms he sent forward. He went on to excoriate the PNC for "bellyaching for propaganda" on reform, adding that a house-to-house voter update should be done before elections in 2010 but was not necessary now. There is no timetable for resumption of task force talks. ¶5. (U) President Jagdeo has made no public commitment on timing, but has indicated he supports holding local elections sometime this year. He acknowledges that municipal governments are broken, and often simply absent, and tied their revitalization to a larger reform package announced shortly after his reelction in August. Informally, Jagdeo's timetable calls for local elections in 2007, house-to-house voter registration in 2008 and 2009, and another round of municipal balloting in 2010, before scheduled national elections in 2011. He is mum about the critical issues of local budgets and the dynamics of political representation at the sub-national level. ¶6. (C) Comment: Political decision-making in Guyana rests with the president alone. If he wants local elections this year, he will get them. His eye is on a bigger prize: making sure his own successor comes from the PPP ranks in 2011. Pushing a municipal vote now with the current list and without governance reforms probably serves that purpose, at least in eliminating one of the only issues giving some traction to the opposition. If elections go forward, we likely will be asked for funding. Locally, we agree with the British, Canadians, and EU missions that our help should be contingent on progress on key reforms first, including an iron-clad budgeting system for municipalities, currently hostage to the whims of cabinet level ministers, and clarity on who is constitutionally entitled to vote. End comment. Robinson