PPP to vigorously fight disenfranchisement of citizens

In light of the APNU/AFC objections to thousands of living people, claiming them to be dead, the Opposition People’s Progressive Party (PPP) says it will continue to fight to ensure that Guyanese are not disenfranchised.

The Party has expressed fear of a ploy to disenfranchise thousands of voters with a whopping 13,000 objections that were made in Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice) during the recently concluded Objections leg of the Claims and Objection (C&O) exercise.

According to Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo at his weekly press conference on Thursday, most of the 13,000 objections were fortunately thrown out. But he noted that there are still hearings in the Moraikobai community.

“Imagine this is a small Amerindian community in the Mahaicony River and APNU has objected to 464 names on the list – almost the entire community they want to disenfranchise because they know that the PPP, in past elections, has gotten upwards of 90 per cent of the votes from that community. So they’re trying to get the people’s names off the voters’ list. Of course, we will fight this vigorously,” Jagdeo contended.

He went on to outline too that there were several objections in Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo) and 600 of those were also thrown out.
“So we’re going to fight any attempt to get people who are eligible to vote— which APNU is trying to do— disenfranchised. Regardless of whether they’re PPP supporters or APNU supporters, they have a right, as Guyanese, to be on the voters’ list in the right place and be allowed to vote,” he stated.

Moreover, the Opposition Leader further noted that it is illegal to object to someone alive, claiming them to be dead. In fact, he noted that persons making such objections can be charged.
He added too that the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Registration Officers (ROs) are supposed to inform persons making objections that they can be handed over to the Police for making false objections.

On Wednesday, PPP’s Chief Elections Scrutineer, Zulficar Mustapha, told Guyana Times that the Party had done some digging and found many of the persons who were objected to alive.
“I intend to attend the hearing myself in Region Five, whenever those hearings are held, and I intend to produce those persons. I am hoping that GECOM will report (wrongful objections) to the Police and the necessary action be taken,” he stated.

The Government side and President David Granger have repeatedly claimed that the voters’ list is bloated by over 200,000 names, hence the need for the controversial House-to-House (H2H) Registration— an exercise that ended up delaying GECOM’s preparations for early elections as both sides struggled for and against its conduct.

After the exercise was brought to an early end by GECOM Chair Retired Justice Claudette Singh following a High Court ruling, the seven-member Elections Commission has been at loggerhead over the merging of the H2H data with the voters’ lists.
Some 370,000 registrations were obtained during the exercise and the data was sent for cross-matching by the international digital security company, Gemalto, to filter for duplicate registrations against the NRR database.

The data was sent in two batches – the first being 180,000 registrations which were completed and returned. Of the approximate 179, 082 transactions received, 150,000 were duplicates (that is, persons who were already on the NRR but re-registered during the H2H) and new registrants amounted to 29,082. The second set of data is expected to be returned shortly.

However, while GECOM is yet to make a decision on how the H2H data will be used, the Opposition has maintained this unverified data should not be used for any merging, otherwise, it could contaminate the voters’ list. During the exercise, only the ruling party scrutinised the enumerators, as the PPP was not invited to participate.

In fact, Jagdeo, who is also the General Secretary of PPP, on Thursday reiterated concerns about the untested H2H data, highlighting several instances where there were issues with some registrations.