New political party A New and United Guyana (ANUG) has challenged President David Granger’s labelling of the expired voters’ list as “bloated, expired and corrupt,” saying that the legal process in place to add newly qualified voters and remove the dead has worked.
The party made its case yesterday in a statement in which it also suggested that the only practical solution to an expected continuing impasse over the appointment of a new Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) would be to have President Granger select one of the 18 nominees who were previously submitted to him by Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo.
In its statement, ANUG noted President Granger’s comments in light of the finding by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) that last December’s vote on the no-confidence motion against the government was valid.
In an address to the nation after the court’s ruling, Granger said it is essential that Guyana holds fair, free and credible elections and argued that this cannot happen on the most recent list of voters as “it is outdated and corrupted.” As a result, he asserted that a new national house-to-house registration process is needed. “It may hold as many as 200,000 incorrect entries. What’s more, those who have reached the age of 18 years since the last election are not on it,” the President stated, before adding that “the Constitution entitles all citizens over the age of 18 the right to vote.”
This contention by the President and others in his administration has already been rebuffed as the most recent voters’ list, which expired on April 30th, included all those persons who were 18 as of October 31st, 2018. Additionally Guyana’s registration laws provide for persons 14 or older to be registered during any continuous registration process and be automatically added to the voters’ list upon reaching the age majority. The last continuous registration period ended on July 18th, 2018, and, therefore, anyone who is 18 years of age and had registered should be on the list.
ANUG called the president’s contentions untrue, while noting that Section 6(A) of the National Registration Act provides that GECOM shall use the official list of electors from the 2001 general and regional elections as the base to commence continuing registration. This provision, it explained, was inserted by Parliament in 2005 to cater for a continuing process by which the list was updated by introducing new young citizens who reached the age of 14 years and removing deceased citizens.
It further said when the President announces a date for national elections, GECOM is obligated to extract from the National Register of Registrants and place on the Voters’ List the names of those persons who are 18 and over or will be 18 and over on the date announced for elections. The list is then published, and copies are placed prominently at places of poll during a statutory period of claims and objections, during which any Guyanese may scrutinise the list to object to any names which should not be on the list or any names wrongfully omitted from the list.
“The process is straightforward and seamless, and has worked for over a dozen years without any difficulty, and the President’s bald statement that the list is bloated, expired and corrupt is simply not true,” the party added.
ANUG also noted that the governing APNU+AFC has justified its insistence on house-to-house registration by pointing out that GECOM has mandated that an exercise be conducted. “This is also misleading,” ANUG said, while pointing out that the three opposition-nominated commissioners opposed the activity, while the three government-nominated supported it. The resulting tie was broken by the casting vote of Justice James Patterson, the Chairman whom the CCJ found was appointed in breach of the constitution by the president. “But since that appointment was done in violation of the Constitution the entire process is vitiated. In any event, a casting vote by Patterson will not inspire the confidence of at least half of the population,” ANUG said.
ANUG further suggested that the party loyalty demonstrated by the commissioners creates a deadlock, which would ordinarily be broken by an impartial Chairman. However, it said the nature of Patterson’s appointment did not recommend him as such. With President Granger already rejecting the 18 names presented to him by Jagdeo without proper reasons, the party warned that another attempt could see the president rejecting the new names, thereby resulting in more delay. As a result, ANUG said it believes that the only “real, lawful and practical solution” to the impasse is for the CCJ to mandate that President Granger selects one of the 18 names already put forward by Jagdeo to be Chairman of GECOM. “The result will be a Chairman in whom Guyanese may repose their confidence and trust, two conditions which are sadly lacking in our vicious political arena,” it added.
