IN similar fashion to its coalition partner, the Alliance For Change (AFC) is also still to officially say whether or not it will be participating in the Local Government Elections (LGEs), notwithstanding the polls being just a little over four months away.

On Friday, during the party’s weekly press conference, AFC Chairman, Cathay Hughes faced questions about the AFC’s position on the imminent elections, and how the delay will affect the party, given that it reduces the amount of time that the party will have to carry out campaign activities, should it decide to participate.

In response, Hughes said that the issue would be determined at the next meeting of the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC); however, she is unsure of when the meeting would be held.
“When our NEC have made that decision we will let you know. No specific date but it is a priority for us,” Hughes declared.

Hughes maintained that the AFC, like its coalition partner, the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), will instead be choosing to focus its efforts on a call for a clean voters’ list. Conflictingly; however, Hughes said that the party will be respecting the ruling of the court which states that names cannot be removed from the voters’ list

“We are in a position now where we keep saying according to a decision by the CJ [Chief Justice] we cannot take names off the list. We have always said we will support the decisions of our court,” Hughes said.
The combined APNU+AFC continues to call for a “clean voters’ list” but without saying how this will be done without undermining the High Court’s ruling that the removal of the names of persons on the list of registrants on the basis of residency would be unconstitutional.

Chief Justice (ag), Roxanne George, in August of 2019, had ruled that persons cannot be removed from the National Database of Registrants through house-to-house registration but through claims and objections and the provision of names of deceased persons by the General Registrar’s Office to GECOM.

Chairman of Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Justice (ret’d) Claudette Singh, has repeatedly made clear that the elections body will not be acting in contradiction of the law as it pertains to the voters’ list.
During Friday’s press conference, Hughes also did not mention whether the APNU and AFC would be choosing to contest the LGE as one party or as separate entities.

In a shocking move, the AFC contested the 2018 LGEs separate from the APNU; however, this saw dismal results for the party at the polls.
This resulted in the AFC’s power in the Coalition being reduced, and in a revised Cummingsburg Accord, the agreement that governs the partnership between the two, the AFC’s seat in Parliament was reduced by 10 per cent.