Ruling on registration verification case: Chief Justice robustly defended people’s right to exercise franchise freely – Jagdeo

General Secretary of the ruling People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, says that Chief Justice (ag) Roxane George robustly defended persons’ right to vote when she ruled on Thursday there is no legal requirement for a Guyanese to be resident at a particular address in Guyana in order to be registered or to vote.

The decision was in relation to a case brought by Chief Scrutineer of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) Carol Joseph, seeking court orders to not only verify an address given when registering to vote but also to prove the applicant has connection to that address.
The Chief Justice dismissed the case, saying that Joseph was asking the court to violate the constitutional provisions that speaks to citizens’ right to vote. She said a person cannot be removed from the voters’ list because no connection was established.
Speaking at his weekly press conference on Thursday, Jagdeo said the ruling showed “…how robust she [Chief Justice] was in defending the right of people to exercise their franchise freely in accordance with the Constitution.”
Jagdeo, who is also the country’s Vice President, went onto lament on what he describes as an ‘ongoing saga’ by the PNC-led A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) Opposition to disenfranchise Guyanese.
“Even as though they speak about democracy and voters list, APNU is trying to take away people’s rights to vote,” he posited.
“[Their] core contention is that if they come to your address today, you’re on the voters list. And they can’t find you there, you lose the right to vote. That is what they’re saying to people… That is what APNU is trying to secure now; trying to steal people’s right to vote… [But] the Chief Justice said no; the Constitution is quite clear.”
According to the PPP General Secretary, this is what his party had cautioned against when they objected and pushed back against the Opposition’s insistence to introduce their version of biometrics into the voting process.
The Opposition has been advocating for the implementation of biometric fingerprint identification for voting in order to prevent voter fraud at the 2025 polls, which is slated for later this year – a proposal that the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has already rejected, citing the legal, technical, security and infrastructural challenges its implementation could pose in such a short time span.
“We argued that there are already biometrics on the list. But they wanted to give the determination of your right to vote, they wanted to give that responsibility to 2,500 presiding officers. Take it away from the Constitution of Guyana that protects all of us [and give it] to 2,500 presiding officers,” Jagdeo stated.
The General Secretary noted that while the PPP/C is willing to work with the Opposition, there needs to be a common platform, and elections rigging will have no place on such a mechanism.
“You have to have a platform on which to work together… Two of the essential things that APNU needs to move away from before you can even start talking about a joint programme, not sharing positions, but joint programme: one, is their repudiation of rigging of elections and violence. We must condemn that. Even now, they can’t move away from that. Look at what they are trying to do now…”
“And the second precondition was stop the racism. Two things we said, if you can move publicly away from that, and we see it, then we can talk about a programme to work together for the interests of Guyana. But if you keep with those things, those are the defining things of your party…those are the defining characteristics,” Jagdeo posited.