Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo Wednesday said the ongoing house to house registration exercise will push elections towards mid next year and that’s why the People’s Progressive Party, the PPP, wants the exercise suspended.
The PPP has been urging Guyanese not to support the ongoing house to house registration exercise, not because it is against a new list for elections, but because creating a new list will drag on till next year.
And for that reason, the Opposition Leader says the process is illegal as it will go beyond the date indicated by the Caribbean Court of Justice for general and regional elections following the passage of the No-Confidence motion.
While the Court refused to dictate a date for elections, it did indicate that its June 18th ruling triggered the provisions of the constitution on the passage of a No-Confidence motion, putting elections in three months or September 18.
“The key aim now is to get the president to discharge his constitutional responsibilities,” Jagdeo told reporters.
He said the President’s responsibilities are to issue a proclamation naming an election date and to dissolve Parliament; Cabinet should have resigned.
According to the Opposition Leader, given delays, the timeline for the completion of the house to house registration would end at December 18 and then there will be other tasks, such as producing ID cards and inputting data to create a new voters’ list.
With the potential for errors, this could drag out the process, and that’s why Jagdeo said elections could then be held till June next year.
While Jagdeo and the PPP have been urging persons not to support the registration exercise, he urged them not to attack those who are conducting the exercise.
“I know most of the enumerators are professional people and I want to urge Guyanese not to target the enumerators.
“They are doing a job and a lot of them are professionals.
“But people see them as being complicit in this illegality; they are doing this for pay, for work,” Jagdeo stated.
“You can treat them politely and say ‘I am not registering.’
“…because these are Guyanese people who are trying to earn a living too and we should not disparage them.”
The three Commissioners of the PPP on the Guyana Elections Commission will be pushing for a vote to suspend the process and instead have a Claims and Objections period to allow those who are not on the electoral list to be registered and for those who are dead to be removed.
