Brushing aside the Opposition’s repeated calls for a clean Voters’ List, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo said believes the issue is a “red herring” one.
As of March, the Voters’ List had more than 700,000 names, almost the size of the country’s population, and according to the Opposition, the list is “bloated” and creates room for voter impersonation among other electoral problems.
The main opposition parties – the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance For Change (AFC) – have been engaging the international community on the issue, with the hope of pressuring the Government into supporting legislative and constitutional changes to the country’s electoral laws.
But at his weekly press conference last Thursday, Vice President Jagdeo said the Opposition is attempting to cast doubt over the electoral process, knowing fully well, that his party will once again emerge victorious at the 2025 elections.
Mr. Jagdeo said it would be unconstitutional to remove Guyanese from the Voters’ List, particularly those living abroad. He reminded that it was the Government and the Opposition that altered the Constitution to remove residency as requirement.
“The issue went to Court and the Chief Justice ruled that it would be unconstitutional to do so because, we together, APNU, AFC, PNC, all agreed…that…to be on the voters’ list you have to fulfill three criteria, one be Guyanese, two, be 18 years and above, and three be resident in Guyana, that was the old constitution, that is only when you would be registered to vote. We all agreed in the constitutional reform to remove the residency requirement. So, all you need now to be registered – Guyanese 18 years and above,” the Vice President said.
He said once an eligible voter is placed on the list, he or she cannot be removed unless they become deceased.
“So, we all agreed that we can remove people who are dead and we suggested that they do this in a massive way. Get all the names, send them to the political parties, published them online and in the newspapers, everywhere for objections and if there are no objections, remove all those names,” the Vice President said.
He said the number of persons on the Voters’ List is as high as the country’s population because the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) conducts continuous registration, coupled with the fact that a large number of Guyanese reside overseas.
“Once you have a continuous registration, that’s called continuous registration, that the numbers on your voters list could get very high more than the resident population sometimes or as high as the resident population because you calculate it on the basis of those who are here, and those who would have migrated too. So, if they say 800,000 live in Guyana now or 850,000 but 400,000 have migrated and their names are still on the list, the list could be 1.25 million people on the list but if they are not here, only 850,000 can vote,” the Vice President explained.
The Carter Centre is among international observers that flagged the country’s voters’ list in 2020, pointing out at the time, that 660,988 persons were registered to vote, an increase of 15.5% from the 2015 election.
It said the number of registered voters seemed to be “disproportionate” to the country’s estimated population, and therefore recommended that “before the next election, the government reassess and overhaul both the process and the technology used to create and manage the voter registration database.”
However, while the National Assembly in December 2022 amended a number of the country’s election laws, the Voters’ List remains an issue of contention, with the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) stating repeatedly, that it could only comply with the existing laws.
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