https://citizensreportgy.com/?p=12195
The ongoing house-to-house registration is illegal, declared Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo.
And during his Thursday (July 25, 2019) news conference, he stressed that the Executive of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) has decided that it will not participate in the exercise, since it will not be “complicit” in an act that undermines the Constitution of the Guyana nor the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) ruling and orders.
“House-to-house registration is illegal…the CEO (Chief Elections Officer of the Guyana Elections Commission) has deliberately embarked on a process that he knows will put him at odds with the CCJ decision,” Jagdeo said.
He added, “I want to say to all Guyanese, do not be complicit. I have reports that GECOM is threatening to charge people. They cannot charge 50,000 and 100,000 people. Should they try to strong arm people then inform us. I am calling on the Commissioner of Police not to allow the Guyana Police Force to be complicit in an illegality.”
According to him, already “horror stories” about under-ages persons, as well as foreign nationals who illegally got birth certificates from the Ministry of the Presidency’s Department of Citizenship, headed by Winston Felix. He added that reports are that a large number of people have not even been visited in the areas that GECOM staff are working in.
He said, “They are doing this to create confusion, so that when the final list is produced it is so flawed that we will not be able to go to Election. Look at the Carter Center report in 1992. This happened before.”
The report – Observing Guyana’s Electoral Process 1990-1992 – talks about control over the production of the Voters’ List and the appointment of electoral officials being put in the hands of a person who was politically aligned – thereby executing the decisions of the then People’s National Congress (PNC), which held power. About General and Regional Elections that were due in 1991, the report said, “Other major problems remained. The most immediate was a flawed Voters’ List which was published in October 1990…the List had a large number of errors.”
The Opposition Leader stressed that the information gathered from the illegally conducted house-to-house registration will have to be scrapped.
He said, “There is no functioning Commission and it is not being scrutinized by the PPP, even though there is a requirement that political parties sign off on the enumeration forms.”
About the ongoing court matter to challenge the continuance of house-to-house registration, Jagdeo said, “We have not challenged the secret June 11, 2019 order (signed by former GECOM Chairman, James Patterson)…we are not going after Patterson’s order. They would want us to re-litigate this issue. Our position is that the Order (mandating the start of house-to-house registration was overtaken by the CCJ ruling and orders.”
He noted that the Chief Justice, Roxanne George-Wiltshire on Monday (June 22, 2019) was clear that, notwithstanding their arguments about starting house-to-house registration, General and Regional Elections have to be done in three months – as per the Constitution, which makes clear that Elections are due within three months of the successful passage of the no-confidence motion.
DELIBERATE PLOY
“House-to-house registration is a deliberate ploy to keep APNU+AFC Coalition government in power for a long time,” the Leader of the Opposition said.
He referred to the work plan produced by the Guyana Elections Commission (CEO) in February 2019, which states that 290 days are need for house-to-house registration. “This takes us months into 2020 – just to get to a voters’ list. Not even a clean list, because when List is ready, there will have to be a claims and objections exercise to finalize the list,” Jagdeo said.
He added, “…secondly, they said house-to-house registration will end on October 20, 2019. This is evidence that they have embarked on a process that conflicts with the constitutional requirement of elections in three months.”
According to him, at present the last valid List of Voters can be updated and cleansed through a Claims and Objections period to allow a timely move to constitutionally due Elections.
He stressed that the National Register of Registrants, which include the names of eligible Guyanese voters, has not expired and a List can be gleaned from that Register to move forward.
Notably, when persons are registered, their names are entered into the National Register of Registrants. From this Register, a list is extracted to be the basis for any elections.
Jagdeo said, “Right now, we have a list. We can cleanse the list through claims and objections and move to Elections…(Keith) Lowenfield confirmed that Claims and Objections can be done and that Granger’s claims are speculative….they want to take us down a road to a point where we don’t even know if you will be on the list…they are de-registering people.
“…this exercise will take us way into next year. Getting the data is just one aspect, they have to input the data into a database and people can make mistakes, they have to do fingerprint scans and more.”
The Opposition Leader was clear that this cannot be allowed to happen. “It is untenable. It is flagrant violation of the Constitution….the APNU+AFC Coalition is afraid of Elections and is trying to create confusion about the list. The facts, however, are clear. We will not waste time running behind the lies of the government,” he said.
Additionally, the Report of the United Nations (UN) Electoral Needs Assessment Mission (NAM) – May 7-11, 2018 – made clear that a Voters’ List will not have more credibility. The report said: “It is the view of the NAM that there is no certainty that a new voters’ list will have more credibility than the current list and that stakeholders will trust it more. Furthermore, any list created close to the elections will likely be criticized as political motivated.”
