Dear Editor,
Please permit me to respond to two specific aspects of the letter titled ‘Political parties must put their house in order in relation to the national election’ penned by Mr Isahak Bashir and published in the Stabroek News of June 8.
The second paragraph of the letter states, inter alia, “The Guyana Elections Commission (Gecom) together with existing political parties have failed hopelessly to raise the consciousness of eligible voters regarding the need to be registered. The methods of voter registration were very cumbersome and as a result a number of people have not yet been registered.” While we cannot speak for the political parties, it is imperative that we respond to this unfortunate accusation which carries the potential to undermine the integrity of Gecom.
We do not understand what Mr Bashir meant by referring to the “methods” of voter registration being “very cumbersome.” Nonetheless, we must point out that the “methods” which were used conformed with the relevant legal provisions and benefited from the endorsement of the parliamentary political parties. Further, the exercise entailed house to house (often times repeated) visits by Gecom field staff and party scrutineers to the residences of potential registrants as far as was practicable in all of the 10 registration divisions. How then could the “methods” have been “cumbersome”? Potential registrants did not have to visit Gecom’s offices. We went to them. How was that cumbersome? If Mr Bashir was referring to the non-acceptability of baptismal certificates, expired passports, photocopies of relevant documents or letters from priests, elders, headmasters, village captains, toshaos and justices of the peace as source documents for registration as making the “methods” cumbersome, it must be appreciated that this methodology was employed (correctly so) with the agreement, and indeed the insistence, of the parliamentary political parties arising from a consultative process.
Considering that there might be numerous other persons who, like Mr Bashir, are not knowledgeable about the extent to which Gecom went to register all persons who were eligible for registration we need to categorically remind all concerned of the following:-
1. It is, and has always been, Gecom’s patent desire to register as many eligible persons as possible and not to disenfranchise potential registrants. We never lost focus of this objective during the 2008 house-to-house registration exercise and this is what will be our goal during future cycles of continuous registration with their concomitant Claims and Objections exercises.
2. Gecom was aware that the estimated number of persons to be registered during the house-to-house registration exercise was not achievable as many persons would have migrated, legally and illegally, during the 2000-2007 period. However, the commission had no official statistical evidence to indicate how many persons would have actually migrated during this period and therefore could not consider this in the determination of the esti-mate.
There are several other reasons why the estimated target turned out to be unrealistic. Some of these reasons included potential registrants (i) being without birth certificates, (ii) refusing to apply for registration, (iii) having incorrect source documents, (iv) having applied for and were awaiting birth certificates, (v) not having applied for birth certificates, (vi) needing to regularize names by deed poll, (vii) whose births were never registered. Another factor which could have impacted against the estimate is unreported deaths.
3. The commission sought the support and involvement of all of the major stakeholders, eg, the parliamentary political parties and civil society organisations to get them to use their individual and collective influence to ensure that all citizens have birth certificates.
4. Gecom had compiled a list of the names and addresses of persons who could not register because they were not in possession of their birth certificates. Gecom forwarded this list to the General Register Office requesting that appropriate action be taken to ensure that birth certificates are provided accordingly. Of course, the potential registrants would first have to apply for their birth certificates. Additionally, the lists were shared with all of the parliamentary political parties with the expectation that they would try to stimulate their respective supporters to do whatever was necessary to acquire their respective birth certificates to become registered.
5. Gecom urged all potential registrants who could not be, or were not registered, either because they were not in possession of the required source document(s) or were away from their respective places of residence, to take all steps necessary to become registered during the Claims and Objections exercise which was conducted in preparation for the holding of local government elections. We invited all political parties to stimulate their respective supporters in this direction with the objective of ensuring that, ultimately, all persons who would qualify to vote at future elections would be included in the relevant lists of electors.
6. Commencing in Decem-ber 2007, and continuing during the entire exercise, the commission had implemented a comprehensive Civic and Voter Education campaign to stimulate eligible persons to become registered during house-to-house registration and the Claims and Objections exercise which was conducted in preparation for the holding of local government elections. This strategy involved providing pertinent information (via all available media), including at grass roots levels, about the exercises.
7. The Civic and Voter Education strategy included the production and installation of suitable billboards and banners at strategic locations, the production and distribution of flyers/pamphlets, visits to schools, and the publication of notices in the local newspapers. Appropriate in-fomercials were also produced and published via the electronic media.
8. Gecom had made it categorically clear that National ID Cards which were issued prior to the 2008 house-to-house registration exercise will not be accepted as a form of identification to vote at future general, regional and local government elections, especially since those cards will have no link to the new National Register of Registrants (NRR) and any voters’ list(s) to be produced therefrom.
Considering the foregoing, Gecom is convinced that it spared no effort to motivate all eligible registrants to apply for registration during the 2008 house-to-house registration exercise and the Claims and Objections exercise which was conducted in preparation for the holding of local government elections.
The fifth paragraph of the letter states, inter alia, “While the elections commission has a well-paid staff in all the ten regions, including well-paid party representatives, it was surprising to hear from Gecom that over 90,000 persons have not uplifted their ID cards to date.”
Please be advised that Gecom, as a matter of policy, does not and will never knowingly employ “party representatives.” We truly cannot comprehend why Mr Bashir, an experienced politician, implied that Gecom employs/employed “party representatives.”
Gecom is concerned that tens of thousands of registrants, who were registered during the 2008 house-to-house registration exercise and the recently concluded Claims and Objections exercise, have not as yet uplifted their respective national identification cards. Accordingly, Gecom issued an emphatic call, via public notices in the media, to motivate the relevant registrants to make every effort to collect their ID cards on the basis that their failure to so do could pose future problems for them.
Registrants were invited to note that the commission would soon move to decommission all national ID cards which were issued prior to the 2008 house-to-house registration exercise. We shared the recognition by pointing out that already, many institutions, including commercial banks were, based on their respective security measures, rejecting national ID cards which were issued prior to the 2008 house-to-house registration exercise.
It must be noted that a registrant could be sanctioned for failing to uplift his/her ID card.
Please permit us to use this opportunity to once again state that Gecom is still distributing national ID cards from the various registration offices located across Guyana during normal working hours. This exercise will continue uninterrupted until June 30, 2010. Thereafter, all uncollected ID cards would be withdrawn from the registration offices and kept secured at the Gecom Secretariat Head Office.
Yours faithfully,
Vishnu Persaud
Public Relations Officer
GECOM
