– says will resist attempts to remove names from voters’ list
The People’s Progressive Party (PPP) has expressed concern that the APNU/AFC coalition is preparing to either set aside or rig next year’s March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections.
This comes in light of a revelation following Tuesday’s statutory meeting that the Government-nominated Commissioners at the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) are attempting to ‘disenfranchise’ thousands of Guyanese.
According to the PPP, one way in which they are seeking to do this is by removing more than 20,000 persons from the voters’ list after they failed to uplift their National identification (ID) cards since 2008.
According to the PPP in a statement on Wednesday, the Government Commissioners are shamelessly attempting to reinstitute the use of an ID card as a qualification to vote – a measure that the current GECOM Chair, Retired Justice Claudette Singh, had ruled was illegal and unconstitutional back in 1998 in the Esther Pereira case.
Pereira, a PNC supporter, had petitioned the High Court to set aside the results of the 1997 elections. Justice Singh had ruled that the requirement for voters to have a voter ID card in 1997 was ultra vires Articles 59 and 159 of the Constitution (despite a parliamentary agreement to use the cards).
Moreover, the Opposition went on to point out that the removal of names from the Official List of Electors (OLE) simply because these persons did not uplift their ID cards is illegal and contrary to the recent ruling of Chief Justice Roxane George.
Back in August, the Chief Justice ruled that persons cannot be removed from the voters’ list unless they are dead or otherwise disqualified to vote under Article 159 (2) (3) or (4).
“From the foregoing, it is clear that the APNU/AFC is preparing the ground either to set aside the entire elections as illegal and unconstitutional, when they lose, or by rigging the elections by disenfranchising tens of thousands of Guyanese electors,” the PPP contended.
This agenda, the party noted, is more so reflected in their other latest proposal to highlight on the OLE, the names of persons who did not participate in the now scrapped House-to-House Registration exercise but are on the Preliminary List of Electors (PLE).
