…Nagamootoo says exercise was key plank of party’s activism
FOR the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), the sanitisation of the voters’ list through house-to-house registration was a key platform of interest in the past but, years later, under new management, the national exercise is being trodden in favour of “opportunism”.
This is the review of Prime Minister, Moses Nagamootoo, who has a wealth of knowledge of the party, having joined it in the 1960s.
“The PPP was not a conventional political party,” Nagamootoo stated during an interview on ‘Straight Up’, a discussion being hosted by Mark Benschop on his Radio Station, 107.1 FM on Monday.
“It was a strong party under Cheddi that had ethical principles, strong revolutionary convictions and a clear vision as to where it wanted to take the country.”
Nagamootoo left the PPP in 2011 to be a part of the Alliance For Change (AFC), which now forms part of the coalition government which governs Guyana today.
On the radio programme, he told of the difference between the past PPP under the leadership of former President Cheddi Jagan and the governance of the party under now Opposition Leader and former President, Bharrat Jagdeo.
During the extensive interview, he also made the connection between the PPP’s former push for “fair” elections and how, under the current management, this has changed for the worse.
October 5, 1992 marked Guyana’s first free and fair elections which were monitored by the US- based Carter Centre led by former US President, Jimmy Carter; it resulted in a victory for the PPP.
Nagamootoo explained that going back into the 1960s, there was a call for the eligible voting age to be moved from 21 to 18.
While this was not heeded to over the years, eventually the platform to empower young people to lobby for the cause grew.
This was coupled with other concerns other than the list, such as overseas voting which raised additional questions about the validity of the then list coming out of the National Register.
CLEAN LIST
By the 1992 elections, Nagamootoo stated that one of the key elements being pushed for by the PPP was the cleaning up of the voter’s list.
“Even if it was only perceived or it was an allegation or a claim that there had been phantom voters on the list, dead people etcetera, then it was a valid call, irrespective from which quarter, the list had to be sanitised,” Nagamootoo began.
“We have that same situation re-occurring in Guyana right now and it is very shameful, rather shameful and pathetic that those who claim to have emerged out of Cheddi Jagan’s party are today resisting new voter registration; resisting the enlisting of young people to place them on the voters list.”
He stated that the importance of the full sanitisation of the voter’s list for fair elections have, in the past, always been “part and parcel” of the platform of the PPP.
Today, PPP Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo, with new elections on the horizon, is lobbying his party supporters against the holding of house-to-house registration in favour of Claims and Objections period crammed within a three-month timeframe.
He does so based on the interpretation of the Constitution which states that following the successful passage of a no-confidence motion against the government, the government shall call elections within three-months.
However, beside this mandate of the Constitution is the provision for a “resolution supported by not less than two-thirds of the votes of all the elected members of the National Assembly” to extend the fixed period should challenges arise.
BLOATED
On the other hand, the current government believes that several challenges exist in relation to the to the voters’ list, now expired, which many have observed is “bloated” with the dead and non-resident persons and void of thousands of unregistered youths.
While engagements between President David Granger and Jagdeo are soon expected, the opposition has already closed the door to compromise, denying the need for the national registration exercise for the sanitisation of the list.
“That was the platform on which the PPP got into the government: a clean voter’s list, a list that is cleansed. Now you have a population of [just over 700,000] people and you have a voters’ list of with 600,000 people. How could that happen when you say the majority of the population are young people?” he questioned.
The last time house-to-house registration was conducted in Guyana was in 2008, 11 years ago.
The conduct of the exercise was budgeted in 2018, prior to the no-confidence vote against the government and some $700M has already been spent towards preparation for a previously expected June 2019 start.
Nagamootoo stated that while the opposition leader seeks to convince his supporters that house-to-house registration is a delaying tactic, the exercise caters not only to coalition supporters, but also to all Guyanese.
Later questioned by the programme’s host, Mark Benschop, on what he believes could have caused the shift of the PPP to discredit the exercise, the prime minister said, “hypocrisy and opportunism”.
“[The PPP] wants to capitalise on a bloated list in order to be re-elected to office,” Nagamootoo said, adding: “The non-Jaganite PPP would have seen an advantage in going into election with this discredited list, this padded list, this bogus list because it wants a list that will ensure that they have a majority.”
