GECOM suspends continuous registration to facilitate Local Government Elections

To facilitate the long-awaited Local Government Elections (LGE), the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) on Wednesday took a decision to suspend the continuous registration exercise.

During an interview with the News Room, PPP/C nominated GECOM Commissioner, Sase Gunraj said the electoral body is empowered to suspend the process as it seems fit.

“You can’t have people continuing to be registered when you have an electoral process in effect,” Gunraj said.

This was done even though the National Registration Act was amended in December last year mandating GECOM to facilitate registration transactions throughout the year.

But it provides for two breaks in the process to facilitate the publication and finalisation of an Official List of Electors (OLE).

“What will happen eventually is that when this continuous registration process gets fully operational, then there will be no need for a claims and objection, etc; there will be no need for a suspension. There will always have a list ready for elections,” Gunraj added.

Continuous registration commenced on January 03, 2023, and was slated to conclude in May 2023.

The decision to suspend continuous registration stemmed from concerns raised at GECOM’s statutory meeting last week by the Opposition nominated Commissioners, who noted that people were continuing to be registered by GECOM even after names were extracted for the compilation of a preliminary voters’ list (PVL).

“The issue was raised in relation to the possible disenfranchisement of persons who would have registered in the continuous registration process after that extraction of the [preliminary voters’ list],” Gunraj told members of the media on Wednesday.

The preliminary voters’ list, Gunraj said, was extracted in February but despite this, persons continue to register up until Wednesday.

Gunraj explained further that the suspension is part of a number of recommendations made by the Chief Elections Officer, Vishnu Persaud.

“After some discussion on the issue, the CEO bought a proposal which saw a slew of measures, including those persons, rather than excluding them and having them subject to the same scrutiny as any person who applied for registration will undergo,” he said.

Gunraj believes that the other objections e raised by the Opposition Commissioners were only meant to further delay long waited elections.

“So far, there seems to be no impact in relation to the date of elections nor any other process that is dependent on this during the preparation for local government elections,” he noted.

Minister of Local Government and Regional Development, Nigel Dharamlall last week appointed June 12, 2023, as the date for LGE, which was last held in 2018.