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Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Aubrey Norton, is calling for Chairperson of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Justice Claudette Singh, to go. Addressing matters relating to GECOM at the weekly press conference, on Tuesday, Norton said Guyana has reached another critical juncture for additional electoral reforms and is holding Singh responsible for allowing the governing People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) “to render the Commission useless in fulfilling its constitutional mandate of ensuring impartiality and fairness in our elections.” Reiterating the call for a clean voters list and the use of biometrics at the place of poll, the Opposition, A Partnership For National Unity and Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) cites the PPP/C for being opposed to these reforms. In October 2015 the then Opposition PPP/C had called for “A new voters’ list to be compiled on the basis of a fresh house to house enumeration” and “Enhanced bio-metrics.” In 2022, President Irfaan Ali said the List is not the problem. Without exception, all regional and international observers that participated in the 2020 General and Regional Elections have urged attention be given to creating a new voters list, citing how bloated the present is. Norton at a previous press conference made known the new Preliminary List of Electors (PLE) has 684,354 names, which represents over 91% of the total population of Guyana. According to him, “This bloated monstrosity alone provides sufficient grounds to question whether GECOM can deliver an election that accurately reflects the democratic will of the Guyanese people and wins their trust and confidence.” On the issue of biometrics, Opposition-nominated commissioners did submit to GECOM a motion to discuss the feasibility of using improving biometrics to address “numerous allegations of voter impersonation at places of poll and which allegations persist over multiple elections,” arguing that “such a feature will significantly impact and improve GECOM’s overall systems by reducing the number of successful instances of voter impersonation.” The Recount Exercise of the 2020 Elections unearthed what Chairperson Singh admitted was grave irregularities but said GECOM was not empowered under the law to address them and which could only be done via election petitions. Sources told Village Voice improved biometric is an important step for GECOM to adopt to reduce the act and/or allegations of voter fraud but they do not understand why GECOM is not grasping at the opportunity to implement a procedure that has national consensus. In the meanwhile, GECOM had initially said it is preparing for Local Government Elections by late November to December. However, Chief Elections Officer, Vishnu Bisram, had proposed February 13, 2023 as the earliest for the election. He has been asked to review the timetable. GECOM in a recent statement made known their operations will be guided only by constitutional and legal provisions, pointing out that the National Registration Act “dictates the procedures for the registration of eligible persons and likewise the removal of any such persons from the [National Register of Registrants Database] NRRDB. In this regard, it is not that the concerns of stakeholders in relation to the PLE are being ignored, but GECOM must act within the framework of the Laws of Guyana.” Norton pointed out it would not be the first time, in the interest of ensuring an election that meets national approval, there is postponement. Pointing to such an occurrence when the 1990 election was postponed to 1992 to ensure an acceptable List and other electoral requirements – in some instance necessitating constitutional amendment- were met as agreed to by President Desmond Hoyte and Opposition Leader Dr. Cheddie Jagan, the Opposition Leader said: “Recent pronouncements by both the GECOM Chairperson and 2nd VP Bharat Jagdeo gave the deliberate false impression that the election laws of the country are cast in stone and are forever unchangeable.” Reference was also made to the 1999/2000 constitutional reform process that led to electoral reform with the re-introduction of geographic constituencies, and in the 2006 General and Regional Election when GECOM introduced fingerprint biometrics to conduct fingerprint scanning and crossmatching exercises to detect multiple registration with the help of Jamaica. The APNU+AFC coalition said they want it to be on record that they “stand ready to discuss and support the necessary constitutional and other amendments to ensure a clean voters list as a necessary condition to ensure that the next elections are free, fair, and credible.”
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