The Alliance For Change (AFC) has not yet determined whether it will contest the upcoming Local Government Elections with its coalition partner, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), according to its Chairman, Cathy Hughes.
“We really haven’t reached that point yet,” Hughes told reporters when questioned on the matter during an AFC press conference last Friday.
At the last Local Government Elections held in November 2018, the AFC went solo and did not do well.
The AFC has indicated that whether it runs with the APNU or not, an acceptable voters list is what is important at this time.
Ms. Hughes told reporters that the call is not unique to the Opposition, pointing out that following the 2020 General and Regional Elections, a number of international observers and civil society organisations including the Carter Centre, European Union, the OAS and CARICOM underscored the need for house-to-house registration, which would aid significantly in the generation of a new Voters’ List, and the electoral reform process.
“As a minimum condition for electoral reform, the team recommends the urgent need for a total re-registration of all voters in Guyana. It is clear that given the state of the voter registration of the country that Guyana was not adequately prepared for the 2020 poll,” Hughes said as he quoted section of the CARICOM Observer Mission report.
Both the AFC and the APNU have long argued that the voters list is bloated with persons who have either migrated or died.
Hughes said while the PPP/C is currently up in arms against House-to-House Registration, the current Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo had championed the cause for a new voters’ list following the 2015 General Elections.
She said in fact, the PPP/C, in October 2015, had demanded enhanced biometrics, electronic voting, and a new voters’ list based on fresh house-to-house enumeration.
“But today, he sings another tune. The AFC notes most importantly that a new voters list is the demand of most Guyanese and the recent IRI poll which informed us that 81% of Guyanese feel that such electoral reforms are necessary is testimony to the magnitude of the problem,” the AFC Chair said.
She reminded that in 2019, the Secretariat of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) had included in its workplan, House-to-House Registration.
Hughes said it wholly unreasonable that GECOM would announce a period for claims and objections for a period of less than 30 days with a list that may have more than 200,000 people who should not be on it.
In a statement last Friday, GECOM said its operations will be guided only by the constitutional and legal provisions contained with the National Registration Act (NRA).
However, the Commission said it is well aware of the concerns surrounding the Preliminary List of Electors (PLE), which was extracted from the National Register of Registrants Database (NRRDB).
“The NRA dictates the procedures for the registration of eligible persons and likewise the removal of any such persons from the NRRDB. In this regard, it is not that the concerns of stakeholders in relation to the PLE are being ignored but GECOM must act within the framework of the Laws of Guyana,” GECOM said.
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