Despite vacillation tactics over LGE participation APNU submit symbol

The A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) coalition is among the parties that submitted their symbols to the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to indicate their interest in contesting the upcoming Local Government Elections (LGE).
The deadline for parties to submit their symbols to GECOM was supposed to be November 21. One party that had previously not confirmed its participation in upcoming Local Government Elections was APNU. During a press conference on Tuesday, however, Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton confirmed that the party has submitted its symbol to GECOM.
“When it comes to symbols, we have submitted a symbol, and we have encouraged groups to submit symbols so that whenever decisions are being made, there are options. The only given we know is that we’re not going to allow the PPP to take our strongholds. That is clear,” Norton said.
With March 13, 2023 set as the date for Local Government Elections, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) is the only major political party that has publicly signalled a clear intention to participate in these elections. On the other hand, one party has publicly ruled out participating in LGE, and that party is the Alliance For Change (AFC). That party announced recently that it would not participate unless its demands concerning the voters’ list are met.
The party has claimed that the list of electors is ‘bloated’, an often-repeated claim of its coalition partner APNU. The party has echoed concerns of its partner, that the list contains the names of Guyanese who migrated. APNU is yet to confirm if it would participate in LGE.
According to the Constitution of Guyana and previous court cases, however, Guyanese who have migrated cannot be removed from the list of electors since residency of Guyanese citizens is not a requirement to vote. This was demonstrated since 2019, when Chief Justice (ag) Roxane George ruled that removal from the list of registrants of the names of persons who were not resident in Guyana and could not participate in the house-to-house registration exercise would be unconstitutional. Her decision was subsequently upheld in the Court of Appeal.
The requirements for a person to vote, as set out in Articles 59 and 159 of the Constitution, are that that person must be 18 years or older, and must be a Guyanese citizen or a Commonwealth citizen resident and domiciled in Guyana.
The AFC also said in its statement that the electoral system is not perfect, and that it is not willing to “perpetuate a deception”. The AFC further said it would support postponing LGE until its definition of a “clean” voters’ list is arrived at.
The AFC has pulled out of contesting the LGE at a time when that smaller party is already receiving diminished returns whenever it goes to the polls. Such was the case in 2018 when the party, then part of the APNU/AFC coalition Government, was forced to contest LGE on its own. It ended up securing just four per cent of the total votes cast.
The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has already designated December 12, 2022 as Nomination Day for the upcoming LGE, which are set to be held next year March. On Nomination Day, parties make their way to a designated location, where their representatives are usually required to submit their list of candidates to the Chief Election Officer, as well as sign on to the required documents, such as a code of conduct to contest the elections.