The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has approved the applications of several international organizations to observe the March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections.
Director General of the Ministry of the Presidency, Joseph Harmon yesterday told a post-cabinet press briefing that organizations which have observed elections in Guyana “from time immemorial” have once again applied to do so and been granted approval by the Ministry.
The list of these organizations which has been forwarded to the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) includes the Carter Center, Organiza-tion of American States and the Commonwealth Secreta-riat.
This information was further confirmed by Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo who told his weekly press conference that the list also includes the European Union.
He also indicated that strides are being made in efforts to have an “international presence in the machinery” of GECOM.
He argued that these external advisors along with international and local observers will serve as “quality control” and ensure that the upcoming elections are free and fair.
The Opposition Leader further shared that the truncated House-to-House registration exercise appears to have registered just under 20,000 additional persons who are eligible to vote. He explained that of the 370,000 persons registered during HtH, 305,000 were identified as entries on the National Register of Registrants Database (NRRD) via the recently completed fingerprint cross-matching exercise.
The remaining 65,000 were believed to be new registrants of whom 37,300 were over the age of 18 but an exercise by the GECOM secretariat using the First, Middle and last names of these individuals found that 17,000 were actually on the Preliminary List of Electors (PLE).
“Of the 20,000 some have re-registered during the claims and objections process so now GECOM is manually comparing the PLE and HtH lists,” Jagdeo noted.
Jagdeo reiterated that if the secretariat is able to discover a number of new registrants his party is willing to accept them onto the Official List of Electors provided there is a joint verification exercise.
He concluded that despite the ongoing concerns his party is not worried that GECOM will not reach their statutory deadlines. “We see movement so we are hopeful that election preparation activities are well within timelines,” he said.
