Responding to questions on preparations for the overdue Local Government Elections (LGE), GECOM Chair, retired Justice Claudette Singh said that the body is aiming to host the polls by the end of November.
She made the announcement following questions from the press yesterday at the Office of the President where a new Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) commissioner was sworn in.
“We just finished our continuous registration. And we are moving now to have a preliminary list and to move then to claims and objections…we are very much looking at the end of November, early December [for LGE],” Justice Singh said.
Local Government Elections were constitutionally due at the end of last year but GECOM was without a Chief Election Officer (CEO) and could not have prepared to host the elections. As a result, the Chair wrote to the government informing it of the situation but committed to confirming a timeline after the appointment of a CEO. Vishnu Persaud was appointed as CEO on December 14 last year but up to last week the public was still in the dark on when elections might be held.
GECOM embarked on a continuous registration process back in March, particularly targeting new applicants. The continuous registration cycle concluded on May 29, 2022, with over 49,000 persons being registered for the first time. A total of 70,041 transactions were conducted during the period. 28,149 were new registrants between the ages of 14 and 17, while 21,130 were new registrants above the age of 18. Additionally, 4,629 persons applied for transfers, 6,526 persons chang-ed or corrected their information, 7,667 applied for replacement identification cards and 1,940 registrants retook their ID photos.
At the beginning of June, the Commission’s Secretariat released a list of vacancies for “polling day staff for Local Government Elections.” The Com-mission was looking for Presiding Officers, Assistant Presiding Officers, Poll Clerks, Ballot Clerks/ Counting Assistants and Information Clerks. That process concluded at the end of June. Stabroek News had reported that the Secretariat decided to go ahead with the advertisement for polling day staff so it could be prepared for whenever the Commission announces a date.
Yesterday, the Commission announced that it will embark on a countrywide claims and objection exercise from Monday, August 22. The aim of the exercise is to produce an official list of electors (OLE) and it will be conducted at all GECOM permanent Registration Offices in the 10 Administrative Regions.
“During the Claims and Objections period, any person who will be 18 years and older by the 31st October, 2022, and is a Guyanese citizen by birth, descent, or naturalization, or is a citizen from a Commonwealth country living in Guyana for one year or more, can make a Claim on or before 11th September, 2022 to be included on the OLE, providing that he/she was never previously registered.
“Persons desirous of making a Claim to be included in the OLE are required to visit the GECOM Registration Office responsible for their area of residence with the applicable source document(s) such as original Birth Certificate, valid Passport, Adoption Certificate, or Naturalization Certificate / Certificate of Registration to be registered for inclusion,” GECOM said in a statement.
The Commission urged that existing registrants check the preliminary list of electors (PLE) posted in their respective districts to verify the accuracy of their registration information. It added that persons who are required to update their registration records such as changes or corrections to their names and occupation or to apply for a transfer in relation to their addresses would also be facilitated during this exercise.
GECOM explained that objections against the inclusion of names in the PLE can be tendered to the Registration Officer of the Registration Area from August 22 to September 15. Objections can be made by an elector who is listed in the same Division list/Sub Division list in which the person being objected to is listed.
Objections can also be made by approved Scrutineers of Political Parties provided that any such Scrutineer has monitoring responsibilities for the Division/Sub Division in which the person being objected to is listed. The relevant original document(s) such as an original Death Certificate must be presented at the time of the hearing to support the basis upon which the objection is made.
“The Commission is urging all eligible persons to ensure that they use this opportunity to be registered for inclusion in the Revised List of Electors (RLE) and ultimately the Official List of Electors (OLE) in order to be eligible to vote. Persons are also encouraged to object to the inclusion of the name of any person whom they believe should not be in the list, based on the legal provisions,” GECOM urged.
Criticisms
Last week, Leader of the Opposition Aubrey Norton charged that government had no intention to host the local government polls. He also advanced the argument that the voters’ list is bloated and should be rectified before any election is hosted. Norton said that they will continue to intensify their efforts to combat a padded list while reiterating his call for Singh to be removed from the post as GECOM Chair.
When asked about the list, yesterday, Singh said that persons have been placed on the list legally and that the claims and objection period is aimed at rectifying faults.
“I am saying everyone on the list, the people who are there, they weren’t bloated they were legally put on the list and if the list is bloated, well we are moving now to claims and objections and people would have a chance to object to who’s not supposed to be there,” she said.
The Opposition Commissioners have accused Singh of always voting in favour of the government-appointed commissioners and when asked about this, she said that her decisions are always based on the law.
“I am not aware that I do something like that. Anything I do in accordance with the law. And I try as a former judge, I always try to uphold the rule of law. But there will be criticisms. If you sit on the bench and you make an adverse decision. The party who loses would say you’re biased you take a bribe, whatever. But that’s it. So there’s always a way you can criticize a decision that’s up to them,” she said.
She also dismissed calls for her resignation saying “when the time comes I could leave.”
The deferral of the polls interrupted the sequence of two consecutive Local Government Elections, which were held under the APNU+AFC administration. After winning the 2015 general elections, the APNU+AFC government held the polls in 2016, ending a two-decade hiatus that began under the former PPP/C governments. The elections were held again in 2018 and were due last year.
With its track record of not holding the polls, analysts say that the PPP/C government will come under close scrutiny to ensure that the polls are held as soon as possible.
