GECOM must have biometrics in place for 2030. I am in full agreement with AFC interim leader, Mr. David Patterson. Regardless of the form that GECOM finds itself in 2030, biometrics must be very much a part of the next elections. It should have been made into a bread-and-butter issue by the opposition in the 2025 elections, one on which it was prepared to lay all on the line and on a sustained basis, except that it wasn’t at that level, with that intensity. The 2025 contest is over. The 2030 challenge starts from now; it really did from September 2nd.
It is good that Mr. Patterson has made this a high priority even before September has ended. Biometrics cannot be an on-and-off, hot and cold, issue, as before. It must rise to be one of those drop-dead issues that is always before the government, (like cost of living and clean governance). Biometrics must be in the consciousness of the Guyanese people. Not should be or maybe; but what must be. Particularly, all those who felt cheated, all those who stayed home and didn’t vote, because they felt that the elections’ machinery and the elections context were fixed to cheat them. I urge Guyanese to read that as expansively as they wish. Aside from the economics of oil, the distribution of its pie, the pressures of daily living, and trust in leadership, there was a sense of the inevitable in the last elections.
The word from the inside of GECOM was that biometrics has its positives, could make a difference. This is, at least, with reference to the credibility of elections. The bottleneck had to do with time, as in not enough of it. To explore options for it, and get a better grasp of it. To make a decision on having it, and then putting it on a full operational footing. Since there is agreement that biometrics has some good in it, then why not get going with it now? I think that the opposition groups, as then configured, beat that drum early enough. Whether they did so hard enough, as in fighting tooth and nail for it, that is still subject to some differences of opinion. It wasn’t then; but it must be now.
The AFC is on the record, and in the forefront. Biometrics must be. To that I would add house-to-house registration, and to be done with the dialogues and disagreements over ‘bloated list.’ There is enough time. There are enough new faces that should have new visions of the kind of elections, the quality and credibility of them, that Guyanese must have, no ifs, ands, or buts about this anymore. Relative to the credibility of the last elections, and subject to the correction of more attentive minds, there were two things that I absorbed. The international observer missions present all spoke with one voice to say that the 2025 elections were smooth and peaceful. I didn’t hear or read any of them using the word credible. Ditto for the various vigilant embassies that are resident here. Food for thought, I would say. I think that biometrics in conjunction with a fresh registration that is nationwide possess enough elements in them to help ease the controversies and distrusts that rage before elections and after them. Since the major local political presences agree on the feasibility of biometrics, however flawed, it would still be better than what is around now. Their agreement removes the roadblocks that were erected, and since 2030 is five years away, the argument about lack of time doesn’t hold as much water as before, or any at all for that matter.
My closing points are that the PPP Government can earn itself some kudos because it would have moved to address a very nettlesome issue for the opposition and its supporters, and probably other Guyanese not as close to call of local politics. I expand this point into another area. Because biometrics, bloated list, and new house-to-house registration have been issues of such significance for the opposition, then in making them possible, the PPP would have responded to their adversaries’ concerns, and with one telling byproduct. Having dealt with those issues in a satisfactory manner, I would go so far as to say that the opposition would be stymied, even neutralized. That is, its biggest areas of contention and objection are now history. Electoral issues would be largely off the table. The opposition would be left to make the best out of cost-of-living, white collar crime, and oil economics, as in its fair and equitable distribution. Substantial matters, for sure. But the bone-in-the-throat electoral issues are all gonzo.
