Former president Bharrat Jagdeo failed to request a transfer during the multiple claims and objections period that were undertaken by the Guyana Elections Commission (Gecom) prior to the eventual certification of the Official List of Electors (OLE).
As a result Jagdeo’s address remains State House and his occupation president, while President Donald Ramotar is listed as living at State House but his occupation is given as politician on the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) List of Candidates.
Chief Election Officer Keith Lowenfield told Stabroek News that the OLE cannot be changed at this point because it has been certified.
He reiterated that for changes to be made to the Preliminary List of Electors (PLE) persons have to request a transfer following the rules and regulations.
Lowenfield said that in the case of Jagdeo the commission did not flag his address or occupation on the PPP/C List of Candidates as that is how it appeared on the PLE and subsequently the OLE.
Prior to the certification of the OLE, PPP General Secretary Clement Rohee had been vociferous about alleged irregularities on the PLE. At a PPP press conference at Freedom House last year, Rohee had said that the party’s “field operatives” had found “18 persons on the PLE with the same Georgetown address. At the said address they found one of the 18 people with a prepared list of the 18 that were listed.” Rohee had said, “while it may be possible that these 18 persons are living at that address we call on Gecom to physically verify these persons’ existence and their place of residence.”
Observers have noted that had the PPP General Secretary and its field operatives been thorough in their checking, the error regarding Jagdeo’s address and occupation could have been corrected. And while Gecom had been stressing the need for eligible voters to check the PLE, the evidence points to Jagdeo not having done so, the observers noted.
Rohee had been similarly vocal on the number of deceased persons still on the PLE years after they would have died. However, Gecom’s Chairman Dr Steve Surujbally had pointed out that this was due to negligence by the General Register Office (GRO) which falls under the purview of the Home Affairs Ministry.
Surujbally had stated that the information disseminated by the GRO needed to be at a certain standard prior to a registrant being removed from the National Register of Registrants (NRR) and the PLE.
“I cannot review the Ministry of Home Affairs’ policy. General Register Office comes under that ministry—a ministry or department that, to this day, is not, is not computerised! Can you believe that?
But be that as it may, there is efficiency. I am not saying that they are inefficient, there are laws that we have to go by… It should be not incumbent but it should be in our interest to try and tell them look send the damn list,” Surujbally had said.
