Dear Editor,
On 19 June 2025, 16 political parties met with the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to get information in relation to General and Regional Elections to be held in Guyana later this year. One of the issues that was reportedly raised was that of ‘Joinder Lists’ and the allocation of seats won in such instances. This letter is written in the hope that it would provide some clarity on the law in Guyana on what must be done in such cases.
Section 97(4) of the Representation of the People Act (ROPA), which is the Act that makes provision for the election of members of the National Assembly, provides that “For the purposes of the foregoing provisions of this section, a combination of lists shall be treated as one list.” This means that when the 65 seats of the National Assembly are allocated to all the lists of candidates submitted by the various parties, where two or more parties joined their lists into a “combination of lists” pursuant to Section 22 of RoPA, that combination of lists is treated as if it was one list.
However, Section 97(5) then provides that “The seats allocated to a combination of lists shall be allocated among the lists comprised in the combination in accordance with subsections (2) and (3), the electoral quota for that purpose being the whole number found by dividing the total number of votes cast for the combination of lists by the number of seats allocated to the combination.” This means that whatever seats are allocated to a combination of lists does not remain as a unified allocation. Instead, what must occur is a second allocation where those seats are then distributed among the ‘Joinder Parties’ using the same process as was used in the first allocation under Section 97(2) and (3). Therefore:
(i) An electoral quota is calculated, this time being the whole number found by dividing the total number of votes cast for the lists in the combination by the number of seats allocated to the combination.
(ii) The number of votes cast for each list is then divided by the electoral quota and seats are allocated to those lists based on the whole number resulting from that division.
(iii) Where 1 seat remains after (ii) above, it is awarded to the list with the highest surplus among the lists in the combination.
(iv) Where 2 or more seats remain after the allocation in (ii), the first seat is awarded to the list in the combination of lists with the highest surplus, the second seat to the second-highest surplus, the third seat to the third-highest surplus, etc. until all seats are allocated.
As an example, consider a scenario where 3 parties form a combination of lists. Party A gets 3000 votes, Party B gets 1000 votes and Party C gets 500 votes. Together they receive 4500 votes and are allocated 3 seats. The seats are to be allocated among them as follows:
(i) The electoral quota is 4500 divided by 3, which gives 1500.
(ii) When dividing by the electoral quota, Party A would get 3000/1500, which is equal to 2 seats with no surplus votes, Party B would get 1000/1500, which is equal to 2/3 and therefore no seat under this step, and Party C would get 500/1500, which is equal to 1/3 and therefore no seat under this step.
(iii) Since 1 seat remains after (ii) above, that seat would go to the party with the highest surplus after (ii). Since Party A has no surplus votes, Party B would have the higher surplus with 1000, so that seat would go to Party B. Party C would get no seat. In the same scenario, if only 1 seat had been awarded to that combination, the electoral quota would be 4500 divided by 1 and, since no one party would have gotten 4500 votes, the seat would be allocated to Party A since that list would have the highest surplus.
There is also no allowance for the sharing of any seat by more than one list of candidates. Section 99A provides that where a seat becomes vacant before Parliament is dissolved, that vacancy must be filled by a person from “the list in which was included the name of the member of the Assembly vacating his seat” or who was not qualified to hold that seat. Thus, a person from another list in a combination of lists, or any other list, cannot fill such a vacancy. The person must be from the same list as the person vacating the seat.
The joinder of lists differs from the formation of a coalition, where 2 or more parties come together to submit one list of candidates and any seats awarded to the coalition list is distributed within the coalition. The key differences between a coalition and a combination of lists are laid out in the table below:
No. Coalition Combination of Lists (Joinder)
1 One list of candidates is submitted by the coalition. A different list of candidates is submitted by each party in the combination
2 There is one presidential candidate and one representative of the list. Each list has a different presidential candidate and a different representative of the list
3 Votes cannot be cast for the individual parties in the coalition. Votes may be cast for any of the individual parties in the combination
4 Votes must be cast for the coalition as a whole, as the constituent parties do not submit separate lists. Votes cannot be cast for the combination as a whole, as each party in the combination submits its own list of candidates
5 Votes are counted for the coalition as a whole. Votes are counted for each list in the combination and added together for the initial allocation of seats
6 Seats are allocated to the coalition as a whole. Seats are first allocated to the combination, then further allocated to the lists in the combination
7 The one representative of the list extracts persons from the coalition list to fill the seats allocated The representative of each list to which seat(s) have been allocated extract the required name(s) from their own list to fill the seat(s)
8 Any person on the list submitted by the coalition can be extracted to fill the seats allocated. Only persons on the list(s) to which a seat or seats has been allocated may be extracted to fill that seat(s)
While GECOM itself must formally address this matter, it can only do so in accordance with the provisions of the law. And, in the case of how it should treat with ‘Joinder Lists’, referred to in RoPA as a “combination of lists”, the law is very clear and leaves no room for either GECOM or the parties themselves to treat with the allocation of seats in a different manner.
Kurt Da Silva
Attorney-at-law