… house-to-house will result in credible elections

…ups calls for new round of registration

“IN the current political climate, it would be fair to ask – why is the PPP so afraid of having a clean voters’ list and credible elections?” People’s National Congress Reform (PNC/R) Chairperson Volda Lawrence questioned as she insisted that there must be house-to-house registration in order to guarantee free and fair polls.

Lawrence was at the time speaking at the party’s press conference, hosted at Congress Place, Sophia on Friday. The PNC/R Chairperson said it was under former President Bharrat Jagdeo’s presidency that the National Registration Act was amended by the “National Registration (Amendment) Act 2007” to ensure house-to-house registration.

That amendment, Lawrence stated, amended the principal Act and inserted the following: “every registration officer shall, either by himself or an authorised officer, by house to house visits within the registration division or sub-division assigned to him, obtain as far as practicable the application for registration of every person, who is on the appointed date of the age of fourteen years or above for the purpose of ascertaining every person qualified for registration to have his name included in the National Register of Registrants.”

Lawrence further stated that the Act stated, “(1) The Commission shall establish a central register which shall consist of a computerised database of the information of the originals of the registration records and the originals of all persons registered under the house to house registration process mentioned in section 6, and the data so generated shall be utilised to effect the continuous registration process.”

The foregoing, she said, establishes clearly that for elections to be credible in Guyana, there is need for house-to-house registration. “There are facts about the current voters’ list that cannot be disputed. It is true that the names of dead people are on the list. It is true that the names of missing or non-existent people are on the list. It is true that the list does not have the names of thousands of young people who recently became 18,” Lawrence said.

In two exercises conducted by GECOM, she said in excess of 150,000 entries on the list were found to be incorrect. “In the same field exercises GECOM could not locate approximately 30,000 persons that National Identification Cards, GECOM has in its possession.”

As far as the PNCR is concerned, the Chairperson said Jagdeo’s rantings are futile attempts to brow-beat the Guyanese so that elections would be held with the corrupt list. “The APNU+AFC is confident that once the bloated and corrupted voters’ list is replaced by a credible list, the Granger-led administration will be returned to power,” she said. “It is understandable that the PPP would argue to keep this corrupt list. It is their bread and butter.”

However, she said one cannot but wonder as to why new political parties, the private sector commission, and some members of civil society champion this list, and by extension, support the perpetuation of a corrupt and undemocratic act against the Guyanese people.

“We must not forget that during its 23 years in office, the PPP Government established an unenviable record of criminality, corruption, human rights abuse, abuse of power, obstruction of justice and incompetence. Jagdeo would now like for all of us to pretend that none of this happened. The PPP is banking that Guyanese; especially our young people will forget the lessons of the recent past and judge them by their new posturing and self-righteous rhetoric. That will not happen,” the PNC/R Chairperson said.