– PM urges Guyanese
– welcomes GECOM’S decision to use data from H2H exercise

PRIME Minister Moses Nagamootoo is urging unregistered Guyanese 14 years and older to get registered within the next four days as he welcomed the Guyana Elections Commission’s (GECOM’S) decision to include the data from the house-to-house registration exercise in the National Register of Registrants Database.

At its statutory meeting on Tuesday, the Elections Commission took a decision to shorten the period initially designated for the conduct of house-to-house registration. As such, the exercise, which commenced on July 20, 2019, will come to a close on August 31 instead of October 20, 2019. According to the Elections Commission, it will then move to ensure that all arrangements for the publication of a credible Preliminary List of Electors (PLE) are in place before the commencement of an extensive Claims and Objections (C&O) exercise.
Weighing on this new development as Guyana prepares for early General and Regional Elections, Prime Minister Nagamootooo said all unregistered Guyanese, who have reached the eligibility requirements, should ensure they are registered as he rubbished the notion that house-to-house registration has been ‘halted.’

“It is clear to me that the registration process has not come to a stop, it has not been halted, there are still four days remaining and I would urge everyone 14 years and above to step forward in this window of opportunity to register,” the Prime Minister told Guyana Chronicle in an interview hours after GECOM made the announcement on Tuesday.

Though the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) coalition had preferred the generation of a new National Register of Registrants through the process of house-to-house registration, from which the Official List of Electors would have been extracted, the Prime Minister acknowledged that the national registration exercise is not the only means of arriving at a credible Official List of Electors.

“House-to-House Registration was a method but it was not the only method by which you could have an authentic, credible list. It was not the only method,” the Prime Minister told this newspaper, noting that based on GECOM’s decision an extensive Claims and Objections exercise would be carried out in its quest to generate a credible list.

With more than 300,000 Guyanese already registered in this ongoing cycle of registration, Prime Minister Nagamootoo believes that the inclusion of that data into the National Register of Registrants Database would aid in the compilation of a credible Official List of Electors.

“Now that you have over 300,000 fresh registrants on the register, it means that you have over 300,000 authentic names, you don’t have to worry that you have 300,000 phantoms. You have credible names of people who are alive, and who are resident in Guyana and that makes the process credible,” PM Nagamootoo said.

He added: “This registration, house-to-house method has added credibility to the process of national registration because you couldn’t invent names and you can’t bring people out of the graveyard or those who have migrated permanently and place them on a list and feel that you are safe and that that is an authentic list.”

He also used the opportunity to applaud the Elections Commission for embarking on the process of house-to-house registration, reiterating that it lends to an authentic and credible List of Electors.

However, he noted that GECOM has not yet disclosed the timeframe for the conduct of the Claims and Objections Exercise. He said too that clarity is needed on the method that would be used to extract the names of eligible voters from the National Register.

Noting that early election is an important element of a democratic process, Prime Minister Nagamootoo said the decision taken by GECOM is intended to facilitate General and Regional Elections at the soonest possible time in accordance with the Constitution and the decisions of the courts. Early elections in Guyana are required as a result of a No-Confidence Motion that was passed in the National Assembly last December. President David Granger, in upholding the decisions of the Court, has repeatedly said the he will proclaim a date for the conduct of General and Regional Elections once GECOM indicates that it is prepared to facilitate credible elections. The President has not received such an advice to date.