Up to Saturday, the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) was able to verify approximately 55 – 60 per cent of the new registrants from the House to House (HtH) exercise. This is according to People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Chief Scrutineer Zulfikar Mustapha, who spoke with Stabroek News yesterday. In an exercise which started on Thursday and which was scheduled to end yesterday, the 16,396 supposedly new registrants recorded during the truncated national HtH registration exercise were scheduled to receive visits to verify that they are indeed first-time registrants.
Mustapha was optimistic that GECOM would complete 100 per cent verification by the deadline. He shared that over 8,000 names were verified within the first two days of the exercise, which informed his optimism that the remaining 8,000 could be verified by the end of yesterday.
It was not clear last evening whether 100 per cent verification was achieved. Mustapha had noted that several persons were not home when GECOM attempted to verify their identity and addresses. Asked whether he would suggest or support an extension if GECOM does not meet the target within the stipulated deadline, Mustapha opted not to address his mind to that possibility in light of his optimism that the target can be met in the remaining time.
However, government-nominated GECOM Commissioner Vincent Alexander told Stabroek News that regardless of whether or not the 100 per cent verification is achieved, no extension should be granted. He said that GECOM must make do with whatever number it was able to verify as “nothing must interfere with the commission’s election timelines.”
Alexander said that he will wait on the report which is scheduled to be submitted today but emphasised that regardless of its contents, GECOM must move forward with the number of persons they were able to verify. He was adamant that no extension should be granted, saying that this would interfere with the commission’s timelines. “Nothing should interfere with the original deadline,” Alexander asserted, while iterating that the verification exercise serves no purpose. “The PPP/C refused to participate in house to house registration. Nobody denied them. They did not send scrutineers. Now, the court has decided that house to house was legal, they are now asking for what they did not do when they had a right and chance to do so,” Alexander lamented.
Pressed on the subject of a possible extension of the verification exercise, Alexander said, “If we do not finish today [Sunday], for me, we will have to make do with what we did…What can you do if you cannot find someone? If they were properly registered but left the country, what are you going to do?”
Mustapha, on the other hand, while not commenting on whether he would support an extension should GECOM fail to have 100 per cent verification by the end of yesterday, said, “The most important thing is to verify. If I come to your home and you are not home, we must verify that you are living there. We do not want to disenfranchise any person but there is a lot of concerns about data gathered during house to house.”
Last week, by a
majority comprising opposition-nominated members and Chairperson Justice (ret’d) Claudette Singh, GECOM decided to undertake a four-day field verification of all the new registrants recorded during the truncated national HtH registration exercise.
It was explained that each of the just over 16,000 new registrants will receive a visit from GECOM staff in the company of scrutineers from the two parliamentary political parties. A deadline of yesterday had been identified so as to not interfere with the timelines established for the holding of elections by March 2nd, 2020.
GECOM had initiated a HtH registration exercise in July but this was truncated by Singh following a ruling by the Chief Justice that the exercise could not be used to create a new National Register of Registrants (NRR). Singh has however repeatedly maintained that since the CJ also ruled that the HtH process was legal, it would be treated as a “verification” process and the information collected would be added to the NRR in keeping with the terms spelled out in the National Registration (Amendment) Act of 2005. This act provides at Section 6 (1) that “it shall be lawful for the Commission by order with effect from a specific date to authorize the registration of all persons who are qualified to be electors; and all other persons in Guyana of the age of fourteen years and over, and such registration shall continue and be conducted in such manner and at such time as the Commission shall direct, suspending temporarily for periods prescribed by the Commission”.
Section 6 (6A) of the same Act also provides that the Elections Commission shall use the Official List of Electors from the 2001 General and Regional Elections as the base to commence continuous registration provided that at any stage the commission may undertake such verification as necessary by a means to be determined by the commission.
