The proposal by the Chief Elections Officer (CEO), Vishnu Persaud for there to be a 14-day exercise to correct the Register of Voters (voters list) for the upcoming local elections, will come up for discussion on Thursday during a special meeting of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).
In an internal memo to the Chairman of GECOM, Justice (Ret’d) Claudette Singh, the Chief Elections Officer said the proposal was in response to the Court action filed by the APNU+AFC Coalition which could see the current voters list for LGE being scrapped over various legal concerns.
When the matter came up at today’s statutory meeting of the Elections Commission, it was deferred.
Elections Commissioner Vincent Alexander said the Commissioners felt that it was necessary to examine the application filed by the Coalition before arriving at decision. It was noted that at the time, the Commissioners had not seen the application.
In the Fixed Date Application filed by Chief Scrutineer of the APNU+AFC Carol Smith Joseph, the Opposition is seeking a total of 14 declarations and 4 orders intended to nullify the preliminary List and give rise to a new Register of Voters.
The Chief Elections Officer, in his proposal, said though the Registers of Voters for all 80 Local Authority Areas were extracted in accordance with the provision of Section 5(6) of the Elections Law (Amendment) Act, GECOM cannot ignore the concerns of the Coalition as detailed in an application filed in the High Court last week.
Mr Persaud said it would appear that the coalition is concerned that the electorate was denied the opportunity to scrutinize the different Registers of Voters.
“More specifically, it appears that the APNU+AFC is concerned that members of the public were not given the opportunity to (i) claim entry in the respective constituency RoVs, providing they qualify for such inclusion based on residency, and (ii) object to the inclusion of electors in constituency RoVs who do not meet the residency requirement for such inclusion,” he explained.
He said in an effort to conduct an election that is free and fair, citizens from the onset must be given the opportunity to get registered once they have met the eligibility requirements, and equally, be given the opportunity to object to persons who may not have met the criteria.
It was noted that the 14-day exercise would enable the correction of the Registers including claims for entry and any incorrect listing of particulars of any voters.
In a statement this afternoon, the governing People’s Progressive Party said it is not opposed to GECOM embarking on another round of claims and objections to address concerns with the voters list for the local elections.
Meanwhile, at today’s GECOM meeting, it was announced that at Thursday’s meeting, the GECOM Chairman will also deliberate on the powers of the Minister of Local Government Nigel Dharamlall to extend some constituency boundaries and revert others to the 2016 Local District boundaries for the 2023 Local Government Elections, and the overall impact the move would have on the voters list.
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