The People’s Progressive Party (PPP) says the calls by the General Secretary of the People’s National Congress (PNC), Amna Ally, for a new house-to-house registration ahead of this year’s Local Government Elections is a desperate attempt to delay or postpone the elections.
According to the party in a release, the call by Ally has nothing to do with the PPP, but more so to do with the PNC since they “discovered the harsh reality that its supporters are not heeding their calls to register.”
The party attributed this to what it said is APNU/AFC’s woefully inept management that “not only decimated a once vibrant economy, but has made it virtually impossible for Guyanese, including their own supporters, to eke out a living after falsely promising a good life…Their failed economic policies have removed confidence from local and foreign investors thereby compounding the woes of a now wary Guyanese populace.”
The PPP reminded that after the 2015 General and Regional Elections, it “called not only for a new house-to-house registration by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), but for electronic voting utilizing enhanced biometrics with a paper- ballot trail which could be audited.”
“Having ignored our calls, the PNC, having completed almost three years in government, is now making calls for a new house-to-house registration. After the completion of two cycles of continuous registration and two periods of claims and objections…This reluctance to engage in the process, is as a result of the despondency precipitated from the economic hardships that the PNC government continue to stack on the backs of Guyanese” said the PPP.
Moreover, the party outlined in its release that house-to-house registration is a meticulous process that necessitates a protracted time period for its completion and accuracy.
Therefore, “having realized that its support is diminishing, this desperate call for a new house-to-house registration by the PNC three years hence, can only be seen as a deliberate attempt to postpone or even derail Local Government Elections (LGE) scheduled for later this year and General and Regional Elections constitutionally due in 2020″ the PPP remarked.
The PPP in a statement earlier this week had said that while it is pleased that the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) and various stakeholders are engaged in a process to update and sanitise the List of Registered Electors, it had noticed some inaccuracies with the list of persons who have died but who were never registered.
The political party said it “conducted a review of this particular list and to our surprise, we discovered a significant number of names which are in fact on the List of Registered Electors. This list is, therefore, not accurate. As a result, the names of deceased persons will continue to be on the List of Registered Electors.”
As such, the Party called on GECOM to “exercise greater care and due diligence in their attempts to sanitise the list,” while outlining that it “will continue to partner with GECOM and other stakeholders, in a concerted effort, to produce a List of Registered Electors that is accurate and whose integrity can withstand objective scrutiny.”
Ally in a rebuttal to this, recommended that GECOM goes ahead with ‘house to house’ registration.
