THE People’s Progressive Party (PPP) is proposing that the verification process for the Claims and Objections period for Local Government Election (LGE) be done the day after the registration.Such a decision, they say, would serve to discourage any thoughts of fraud, and preserve the integrity of the voters list as well.

“We requested that the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) do not do the verification the same day. For example, if someone goes and registers from an area — because everyone has to come from a constituency — we ask them that this person’s verification should be done the following day, so we can ensure that people are living in the right address.
“I can come and barrow an address for a couple of hours, go and register, and say I am from that address; go to the home and relax, GECOM then visits and verifies me, but I am not living at that address permanently,” PPP parliamentarian Zulfikar Mustapha said at the party’s weekly press conference yesterday at Freedom House.

Mustapha said GECOM has been doing verification the same day of the registration process, and the PPP scrutineers have objected to it. “We will be making a note of the various names, and will be making representation to GECOM,” Mustapha said.

Another bone of contention, he said, is GECOM’s demarcation of boundaries, which, if not done properly, can affect the outcome of any elections.

“We told GEOCM that there will be a need for more persons who would need transferral now than (in) the previous National Elections; and all the boundaries within the country should have been demarcated before they embark on the campaign of Claims and Objections,” he said, adding:
“But while they are doing claims and objections, they are still fiddling with the boundaries, since the 580 constituencies have to be demarcated properly; but there are problems in Anna Regina, Lethem, Bartica, Corriverton; they are still trying to demarcate those boundaries.”

Expanding on the subject, Mustapha said many new communities have not been included in the new boundaries, and this which can affect voters.

Meanwhile, General Secretary Clement Rohee has said the party has representatives in all villages, so that should any issue arise, it would be dealt with accordingly.

GECOM recently announced that the Secretariat is preparing for the 2016 Local Government Elections and will address every one of the PPP’s concerns prior to the elections.
Although, the Constitution stipulates that the elections should be held every three years, the last local government elections were held in 1994. The protracted delay was caused by reforms agreed to by the then People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) government and the People’s National Congress, with the last pieces of legislation being passed this year.

Over the years, there have been numerous calls and protest actions for the then PPP government to hold local government elections. The PPP had even vowed that, once it was re-elected in the 2011 General and Regional Elections, local government elections would be held within the span of a year.

GECOM commenced its Claims and Objections Exercise for Local Government Elections on November 9 to produce a Register of Voters (RoV) for each of the nine municipalities and sixty two Neighbourhood Democratic Councils (NDCs). The exercise will end on December 13, 2015.