The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) did not issue any consequential orders for elections, postponing until July 12. Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) told the CCJ that it has to conduct House-to-House registration, therefore, it will not be ready until, at least, December 21—previously they said before November. GECOM is in conspiracy with APNU+AFC to delay the elections.
APNU+AFC is obsessed with a new House-to-House voters registration and voters list before elections are held because they are scared to face the electorate in a free and fair election without a rigged voters list. A RIGGED VOTERS LIST IS AT THE TOP OF THE RIGGING STRATEGY. David Hinds is the latest APNU+AFC sycophant to let the “cat out of the bag”, declaring emphatically that APNU+AFC cannot win an election with the existing voters list. They want an APNU+AFC-friendly voters list, a rigged list, a list padded with phantom voters and with non-Guyanese voters. A rigged voters list was at the heart of the appointment of Winston Felix as the Citizenship Minister. His mission was to pad the voters list for the 2020 elections, hence the question of the thousands of new birth certificates. The No-Confidence Motion (NCM) derailed the plan.
Every excuse they have made for a new voters list is fake. Initially, it was that there were 200, 000 dead persons on the voters list. The number of adults dying each year in Guyana is just over 6,000 people. That means, everyone who died in Guyana during the last 40 years is still listed on the voters list, even though GECOM has often cleansed the list by removing names of dead people. The absurdity of this claim has forced APNU+AFC to back off and to now simply claim there are “too many dead people” on the present list. This in itself, even if true, is no reason to embark on a lengthy and expensive House-to-House registration.
The legal process of extracting the names of dead persons exists. First, the General Registrar’s Office (GRO) periodically submits a list of all persons who have died in Guyana for the relevant period and GECOM then deletes those names through a scrutinized mechanism. Second, during any continuous registration period or during a claims and objections period which precedes any election, individuals and political parties can make claims to remove any names for which they have evidence showing that those persons have died. Third, even if names of dead persons remain on the list—a reality which exists for any voters list in the world—those persons cannot vote in a free and fair election. Would they arise from the dead and from their graves or from their ashes to show up at the voting station? The mechanism exists in our elections to prevent anyone voting for these people.
Their main claim now— another bogus claim, is there are thousands of young people who have turned 18 whose names are not on the list. First, registration in Guyana is continuous. In 2017 and 2018, there were three continuous rounds of registration, so that all persons who were 14 years old in 2018 would have had a chance to register and obtain an ID card. Those persons who would have turned 18 by Election Day, whenever that day is, would have had their names extracted from the National Register of Registrants (NRR) into a preliminary voters list. Second, with the exception of a person who had never exercised his or her right to register, those persons would have another chance to register during the obligatory claims and objections period before the elections. House-to-House registration or not, no eligible voter is excluded from registering for the elections.
Indeed, there are adults much older than 18, whose names are not on the voters list or in the NRR because they had never exercised their right or were unable to register. These persons can register before an election during the claims and objections period. This is a normal practice since the claims and objections period MUST be conducted even if there is a new voters list.
Are there persons on the voters list who no longer reside in Guyana? Of course. Even with a new House-to-House registration, there will be people on the list who no longer reside in Guyana or who are temporarily out of the country. Whether there are dozens, hundreds, or thousands of persons whose names are on the list and will not be in Guyana on Election Day because they are temporarily out of Guyana or permanently residing somewhere else, it should not be a problem. If they are not present, they cannot vote; unless the process is rigged to allow the illegal use of ballot papers for someone else to cast those votes.
Clearly, APNU+AFC is desperate, scared of an election and looking for any reason to postpone the election. Their plan of a rigged election in 2020 was thwarted by the NCM and they did not have the time to put their 2020 rigging machinery and strategy into place. This whole time, since December 21, was a buying-time strategy to put the rigging strategy into place. A rigged, padded voters list was a critical element of their rigging strategy. That is, the obsession about House-to-House registration. That is why David Hinds confessed APNU+AFC cannot win an election with the present voters list.
Dr. Leslie Ramsammy
