Over the last week, the national house-to-house registration exercise that is being undertaken by the Guyana Elections Com-mission (GECOM) has been able to register over 50,000 persons but challenges still plague the process, according to Chief Election Officer Keith Lowenfield.
Lowenfield told reporters yesterday that there have been instances where persons have let loose dogs on enumerators and told GECOM staff that they will not be paid. “We continue to have challenges in operationalising the event. These challenges include, for example, where persons are told that to register is an illegal activity and they are fending them away from participating in the process. We’ve had incidents where dogs are let out on our enumerators in the field. We’ve had scenarios where enumerators are told that they will not be paid and they should no longer participate in the process,” Lowenfield shared following the appointment of the new GECOM Chairperson, retired judge Claudette Singh.
He stressed that the last claim is “particularly erroneous because as you are all aware monies were budgeted for the conduct of house-to-house.”
According to Lowenfield, the commission’s Public Relations Officer “has been working feverishly” to make sure that comments about the illegality of house-to-house registration are removed from the mind of the prospective registrant.
“We’ve been working hard to convince persons it is a legal activity and staff will be paid,” he said, while adding that now that there is a full commission it will make decisions on the way forward.
“Whatever decisions relative to house-to-house and the conduct of elections will be made in short order by a duly constituted board now that there is a chair. The commission shall meet, shall deliberate and shall make all,” Lowenfield stressed.
On Saturday, July 20th, GECOM began operationalising Order No. 25 of 2019, which called for a process of house-to-house registration to be conducted between July 20th and October 20th, 2019.
The order was signed by former Chairman James Patterson on June 11th, a week before the June 18th ruling of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), which deemed his appointment unconstitutional.
In response, Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo, who has declared the process illegal, directed his party’s supporters not to participate, while attorney Christopher Ram has sought a court order to stop it.
Jagdeo and his party have been holding weekly protests calling on the APNU+AFC government to honour the ruling of the CCJ that a no-confidence motion against it was successfully passed and elections must be called in accordance with the Constitution. The protesters have been calling for the naming of an elections date and the cancellation of the registration process now being undertaken by GECOM.
According to Jagdeo, GECOM’s Legal Officer, Excellence Dazzell, advised that the process was illegal.
Dazzell actually advised that as house-to-house registration is likely to extend beyond the three-month deadline set by the court, it is likely to lead to the commission acting in contempt of the court orders.
Lowenfield has, however, stressed that Dazzell also advised that since the June 11th order, based on the directions of the Com-mission on February 19th, 2019, “was signed and gazetted before the Judgment of the CCJ… it is valid.”
According to Lowenfield, he was advised that “in light of the judgment of the [CCJ] on 18 June 2019, which stated that the process by which Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission was appointed was flawed, every act done by that Chairman (Justice (Rtd) James Patterson) after 18 June 2019 would be void. However, acts done before 18 June 2019 would be valid since those acts would have been done on the premise that the appointment was bona fide.”
