Yesterday the Opposition, a Partnership for National Unity and Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) walked out of the National Assembly after the Speaker denied the opportunity to hear a motion for a clean voters’ list.
On November 2, Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Aubrey Norton wrote Speaker, Mr. Manzoor Nadir requesting for ‘an adjournment on a definite matter of urgent public importance.’ Norton outlined that given “the question of a Clean Voter’s List is of critical importance if Guyana is to be considered a democracy…” requested the Standing Motion in his name and seconded by Mr. Khemraj Ramjattan, be discussed on Monday, November 7. The request was denied yesterday which led to the Opposition walking out of the National Assembly.
Read below the Opposition’s response to Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, Ms. Gail Teixeira’s criticism of the walk out.
TEIXEIRA’S ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE OPPOSITION MOTION ON A CLEAN VOTERS LIST ARE RIDICULOUS
At yesterday’s sitting of the National Assembly, the Speaker’s denial of the opposition’s motion of adjournment to debate a matter of definite, urgent and public importance did not surprise anyone. Guyanese are fully aware of the puppet/puppet master relationship between the Speaker and Freedom House. No one, therefore, expected the Speaker to rule objectively on the merits of the motion and in the interest of parliamentary democracy.
However, the Opposition tabled the motion to ensure it cannot be accused of not exhausting all available conventional mechanisms to get a clean voters list. At GECOM, the efforts of our commissioners to appeal to reason and good sense have been resisted by a Chairperson who has shown no courage, no competence, and no independence in fulfilling her constitutional duty to the people of Guyana.
APNU+AFC itself has been making its case for a clean list to the wider society, the diplomatic community and civil society. Additionally, months ago, we publicly and clearly signaled our readiness to support all required constitutional and statutory amendments to facilitate the cleaning of the list and the use of modern voting technologies.
All these efforts have failed to convince the PPP to return to its 2015 position when Freedom House itself loudly called for fresh house-to-house (H2H) registration and for the use of biometrics at the place of polling. PPP’s hypocrisy is there for all to see.
Minister Gail Teixeira’s arguments on Monday against our motion were just as ridiculous. She argued that the fact that the List of Electors now includes over 90% of Guyana’s total population is a result of the opposition using a 10-year old low national census figure.
But whether the population is 750,000 or her predicted 800,000, the fact still remains that the PLE has over 200,000 names of persons who are either dead or no longer reside in Guyana and is therefore bloated. That number does not disappear or dwindle based on the size of the population. It still remains a number that could be exploited to deny the democratic will of the people through massive voter impersonation, as occurred in the 2020 election.
Minister Teixeira also repeated the ignorance that the same database was used by APNU+AFC in 2011 and 2015 elections. But as has been frequently explained in rebuttal, the list today in 2022 is not the same list in the 2011 and 2015 elections. Recall that the last H2H registration was in 2008. The National Register of Registrants (NRR) was therefore three years old in 2011 and seven years old in 2015. Today, it is fourteen years old! It has lost its purity, shape and soul. It is not the same animal.
Further, Minister Teixeira (in justifying the recent criticisms leveled at her) stated that the Opposition Leader, Mr. Aubrey Norton violated parliamentary rules by tabling a motion for the cleansing of the voters list by constitutional and statutory amendments when such amendments to electoral laws were slated to be debated the same day.
Minister Teixeira either lacks understanding or believes the Guyanese people can be easily fooled. The Opposition’s motion for a clean voters list targets a few specific articles in the Constitution. The motion, therefore, cannot be accommodated by the bogus ROPA consultations — as these consultations, according to the Attorney General Anil Nandlall on several occasions, have nothing to do with restructuring the electoral provisions in the Guyana Constitution, but are limited to the Representation of the People Act (ROPA) and the National Registration Act.
Likewise, the argument that the motion should await the larger CRC process is dishonest. Elections are due in 2023. The motion targets only a few specific constitutional clauses to increase the integrity of and public confidence in those very elections, which are likely to be held before the CRC even starts.
Lastly, as regards the accusations that there is no evidence of voter impersonation, let us quote Kaieteur News of 10th September, which stated that “More than 100 overseas Guyanese fingered in Opposition fraud list voted at 2020 polls.” The Kaieteur News article supported its own conclusion by stating, “This is according to information seen by this publication following the release of documents pertaining to voter fraud.”
At the end of the day, the PPP is hell-bent on taking Guyana into local and national elections with a bloated list. The PPP is being short-sighted and reckless. We have exhausted all avenues of reason and good sense.
This arrogant attitude of the PPP is manifest in their unwillingness to have an investigation into the allegations of bribery and corruption leveled against Jagdeo by Su in the vice News Report and the violation of the rights of Ms. Tamieka Clarke by SOCU. The PPP attitude is teemed with potential for exacerbating the tensions in Guyana.
