Government will not be involved in any process to remove persons from Voters List -VP Jagdeo

After the 2020 general elections, a number of the observer groups in their final report also recommended that a new voters list be put together.

Government will not be involved in any process to remove persons from Voters List -VP Jagdeo

Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo today declared that the Government will not be involved in any process to remove the names of persons from the current List of Electors since it believes such a move is unconstitutional.

The statement by Mr. Jagdeo was in direct response to Opposition Leader, Aubrey Norton’s position that there should no elections until there is a new voters list. 

Mr. Norton wants the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to embark on a process to create a new voters list.

The Vice President said such a process could result in persons who are not around at the time being removed from the list.

“So you cannot remove the person from the list if he or she is not resident in Guyana. The APNU tried this when they try to do the House-to-House registration, that the illegal Chairman ordered and that Lowenfield pursued and the matter was litigated in the court and the Chief Justice ruled that it is unconstitutional to remove people’s names based on residency, this is precisely what Norton wants us to do,” the Vice President said during a press conference today.

According to Mr. Jagdeo, the Constitution of Guyana was amended with the agreement of all political parties in the early 2000s and in that amendment, the residency requirement was removed.

Mr. Norton has said that his call is not to remove persons from the voters list based on residency. He has contended that the list is bloated and the number of persons on the list is not a true reflection of Guyana’s population.

The problem of the list of electors has been a thorny issue.

While it was in opposition, it was the PPP that complained about the voters list and made a call for a new one.

After the 2020 general elections, a number of the observer groups in their final report also recommended that a new voters list be put together.

“So we are not going to act in an unconstitutional manner. We are not going to be complicit with the People’s National Congress in this issue,”  Jagdeo declared.

On the issue of biometric voting, the Vice President said the PPP supports biometric to improve polling day controls but will not support biometrics as a restriction on people’s right to vote. 

The Opposition nominated Commissioners on the Guyana Elections Commission have recommended biometrics to avoid voter impersonation, but Mr. Jagdeo said there is no evidence to support that voter impersonation had occurred during the 2020 elections.

“Here today, I am going to urge the government to launch an investigation into these allegations and the so-called evidence provided by the statutory agency. With the passage of time I think we have been a bit lax on taking tough action against those people who fabricated this data,” Jagdeo said.

The PPP had promised a full probe into the 2020 elections. The President recently announced the formation of a Commission of Inquiry into the elections, but its terms of reference are still to be released.

The Guyana Elections Commission is currently gearing up for local elections by December. The Claims and Objections period begins next week.

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