Opposition Leader Robert Corbin says the Guyana Elec-tions Commission (GECOM) should be made to answer why it has not yet published the National Register of Registrants (NRR).
Corbin was responding to queries at the party’s press briefing on Friday. “I don’t want to speculate…The key to any proper voters list has to be an acceptable NRR. We spent money paying scrutineers, we did cross-referencing in Jamaica, so it’s mind-boggling that having gone through all this that GECOM” may not proceed this way, he said.
Corbin then cautioned that if it were that the Commission was going into a hybrid agreement to try to match a 2009 deadline for local government polls, this would bring about controversy. “We should be finalizing that NRR…so any corrections could be made and people would have a chance to see. So that when this is done there is no basis for controversy and then GECOM could go about printing and producing ID cards,” he said, adding that GECOM must be made to give account about why it has not proceeded with this task. “Some jiggery-pokery is about to begin again. They should do the correct things so that all that money would not be wasted,” he said.
Corbin adverted to the June 14, 2007 agreement that the Guyana Government, political parties and GECOM had signed. That agreement mandated that a preliminary list of electors would be extracted from the NRR. In the context of this agreement, Corbin said that the preparation and the publication of the final new NRR is the starting point for any voters list for the local government polls.
Corbin also said he understands that if GECOM were to complete its tasks and follow set procedures it won’t be ready to host local government elections until early 2010. He pointed out that at a meeting called by GECOM, on Wednesday, to brief scrutineers of political parties on the preparation for local government elections, Chief Election Officer Gocool Boodoo “could provide no coherent information to those present on the Final new NRR.” Corbin said instead GECOM seemed to have jumped the gun “apparently answering the cracking whip of the Office of the President, and proceeded to outline their plans for the publication of a Preliminary List of Electors for the upcoming Local Government Elections and the Claims and Objections period to arrive at a final Voters List for that Election.”
The June 2007 agreement said that “Prior to the holding of the forthcoming Local Government Elections, a national 2007 House-to-House Registration, of all eligible registrants aged 14 years and over, will be undertaken by GECOM and this will constitute the country’s new National Register of Registrants (NRR).” According to the PNCR the parties also agreed that a Preliminary List of Electors (PLE) will be extracted from the new NRR for the upcoming local government elections, “on the basis of which a Revised Voters List and a Final Voters List will be prepared for that Election.” All of the abovementioned parties also agreed that the continuous registration will, thereafter, be used by GECOM to update the NRR on an ongoing basis to ensure that a Voters List could be readily extracted for the holding of future elections.
Also, under that agreement, the parties agreed that they would fully recognise and accept the new NRR compiled by the 2007 House-to-House Registration Exercise and will equally support its use for the extraction of the PLE for the local government elections.
