Guyana’s complicated electoral system

Apr 25, 2025 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Peeping Tom…

Kaieteur News- In the year 2000, Guyana reformed its electoral system in an attempt to strike a delicate balance: to uphold proportional representation while also injecting a dose of regional representation. The goal, it was claimed, was to allow citizens across the country to feel a greater connection to the people they elect to represent them in the National Assembly.

To achieve this, the system was redesigned to include both constituency lists and national top-up lists. Parties would usually submit two sets of lists. In theory, this was meant to deliver the best of both worlds — geographical and proportional fairness. But in practice, proportional representation still dominates and undergirds the entire system.

In the General Elections, parties compete for seats in the National Assembly. The National Assembly has 65 seats. Of these, 25 seats are allocated across the 10 geographic constituencies (corresponding to the 10 administrative regions of Guyana). The remaining 40 seats are filled using a national top-up list based on the total number of votes each party receives countrywide.

Now, suppose three political parties — Party A, Party B, and Party C — contest the election. After the votes are counted, the results look like this:

• Party A wins 50% of the national vote
• Party B wins 35%
• Party C wins 15%

Under the proportional representation system, the total number of seats in the 65-member National Assembly should be distributed proportionally according to the national vote. That would mean:

• Party A is entitled to 33 seats (50% of 65)
• Party B is entitled to 23 seats
• Party C is entitled to 9 seats

Now let’s say that at the constituency level, the results are as follows:

• Party A wins 15 constituency seats
• Party B wins 8 constituency seats
• Party C wins 2 constituency seats

These constituency seats are then subtracted from the total number of seats each party is entitled to base on the national vote:

• Party A gets 33 – 15 = 18 top-up seats
• Party B gets 23 – 8 = 15 top-up seats
• Party C gets 9 – 2 = 7 top-up seats

This is how the national top-up list comes into play: it makes up for any disproportionality that arises from the constituency allocations. Now, here’s the catch.

Even though voters in the constituencies are casting ballots that are supposed to ensure regional representation, they are not voting for individuals — they are voting for party lists. And even after the elections are over, the parties — not the voters — get to decide which individuals from their list will enter the Assembly.

In the report of the European Union Observer Mission to Guyana’s 2020 general and regional elections, it was suggested that this practice goes against the spirit — and letter — of the Constitution.  It was pointed for example that Article 160(3)(a)(ii) states that the method of preparing lists of candidates must allow voters to be sure which individuals they are electing.

It has been suggested elsewhere that under the current closed list system, this certainty does not exist. Voters are kept in the dark. They are voting blind, without knowing who will actually represent them in the National Assembly.

This view however is debatable. Although Guyana’s electoral system uses a closed-list format, it would be a mistake to assume that voters are completely detached from the individuals who ultimately become Members of Parliament. In fact, when a voter casts a ballot for a political party, they are not only expressing support for that party, they are also indirectly voting for the individuals named on that party’s geographic list. This is because the party’s geographic list forms the pool from which representatives for that area must be drawn if the party wins seats in that region.

Take, for instance, Region 3. If a voter in Region 3 casts a vote for Party A, and Party A wins two of the three seats allocated to that region, those seats must be filled from the list of candidates Party A submitted for Region 3. The voter may not know in advance which two persons the party will select from its geographic list, but the fact remains that only individuals who are listed for that region can be chosen. In this way, the ballot cast in Region 3 is also a vote for one of the individuals on the Region 3 geographic list.

While it is true that the party retains discretion over who it selects from the list, it cannot draw candidates from outside the region’s geographic list to fill those seats. That restriction creates an important link between voter and representative.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.) 

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