LOCAL democracy is an integral part of the overall governance system. It allows for citizens at the grassroot level to participate in the decision-making processes. It is therefore important that local democratic elections are held within the constitutionally prescribed timeframe. The PPP/C administration has already made budgetary provisions for the holding of local government elections in anticipation of elections later this year.

The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has indicated that it will commence countrywide Claims and Objections exercise, starting August 22, in accordance with Order No. 35 made under the National Registration Act Chapter 19:08. The intention behind the exercise is to compile an Official List of Electors (OLE) that is credible and acceptable to all the parties involved in the elections processes.

This is indeed a timely and welcome development, especially in view of the pending Local Government Election which was postponed due to factors outside of the control of the current PPP/C administration. In fact, the governing party had long indicated its readiness and preparedness to face the electorate in the local government elections. This is quite unlike the opposition PNC which continues to raise all manner of unfounded allegations designed to frustrate and further delay the holding of local government elections. Opposition Leader, Aubrey Norton, has continued the false and misleading narrative that the Voters’ List is ‘bloated’ and by some bizarre twist in logic has concluded that the PPP/C is a beneficiary of the ‘bloated’ OLE.

Nothing could be further from the truth. And while there are indeed persons who reside overseas and their names still remain on the List of Electors due to the requirements of the Constitution and a High Court ruling, that is not in any way indicative of a ‘flawed’ List of Electors as claimed by the political opposition. This observation was made by the Carter Center in its final report when it wrote that ‘the number of registered voters seems disproportionate to Guyana’s estimated population, in part because Guyana allows Guyanese living overseas to remain on the Voters List’.

A similar observation was made by the European Union which, in its report, said that Guyana’s high emigration rate may be the most significant factor accounting for an ‘inflated’ list. The salient observation made by the mission in their final report was that overall existing safeguards were in place, notably the use of voters’ lists with ID pictures by polling staff and party agents to prevent the risk of voter impersonation on Election Day.

It would appear that no list would be acceptable to the PNC unless it is skewed in its favour as in the past when there were thousands of phantom voters. Guyanese are all too familiar with the days when the list were compiled with non-existent Guyanese, especially as it related to then overseas list. Apart from the fictitious voters list, there were numerous instances of tampered ballots and the hijacking of ballot boxes to unknown destinations all intended to engineer a PNC ‘victory’ at the polls.

The PNC seemingly has not abandoned its past history of electoral fraud and is taking issue with anyone who stands in the way of fraudulent elections.  Only recently, Leader of the Opposition Mr. Aubrey Norton said that he did not see elections being held with the current Chairperson, retired Justice Claudette Singh, at the helm. Her ‘offence’ was that she refused to support and facilitate attempts by the APNU+AFC to thwart the will of the electorate, in August 2020.

GECOM, for its part, is pressing ahead with the holding of Local Government Elections before the end of 2022. According to the GECOM Chair, the Commission has completed the continuous registration process and are now moving to the next phase, namely the Claims and Objections exercise which is an important aspect of the santisation of the voters’ list. This would facilitate the removal of dead persons’ names from the list and the inclusion of names that were otherwise excluded or incorrectly listed.

And according to Vice-President and General-Secretary of the PPP, Bharat Jagdeo, the government is expected to table the amendments to the Representation of the People Act (RoPA) in the National Assembly when it resumes in October. This will allow for much greater transparency and a strengthening of the democratic process in Guyana, especially in the context of what transpired in the March 2, 2020 elections. Among the new amendments proposed are the removal of discretional powers by the Chief Elections Officer on important aspects of the elections process such as the determination of the number and sites of polling. Moreover, hefty penalties including imprisonment are provided for in the proposed amended legislation for those found guilty of knowingly perverting the course of electoral democracy.