Gecom apprises political parties about continuous registration
The Guyana Elections Commission (Gecom) recently met political party representatives about the continuous registration exercise which was launched on Monday.
In a statement, Gecom said the meeting, held on August 27, at the Hotel Tower, was intended to apprise the party representatives on the role of scrutineers in the process. “This meeting was held on the initiative of Gecom, in recognition of the need to keep the political stakeholders current with the legal, technical and administrative requirements associated with the continuous registration exercise,” it said.
The 11 political parties that contested the 2006 general elections were invited to send their respective chief scrutineers/representatives to attend and participate at the meeting. However, Gecom said “disappointingly” only five of the invited political parties attended the meeting—PPP/C, PNCR, TUF, JFAP and GAP.
Gecom added that the participants were also informed that the continuous registration process will be guided by the principles anchored in its Manual for Continuous Registration, to which they were privy. Further, they were also presented with information in a document on the role of scrutineers in the process and were subsequently invited to submit concerns/suggestions/recommendations which could aid the exercise, with a view of enhancing transparency and universal acceptability of the outcomes.
Gecom Chairman Dr Steve Surujbally and Chief Election Officer Gocool Boodoo were among the commission representatives at the meeting.
Last week, PNCR leader Robert Corbin said his party still had reservations about Gecom’s preparations for the exercise, noting that there was insufficient information available to the party prior to the launch.
He said he still needed to hear “definitively” from Gecom, explaining that he was yet to receive anything “in writing” about what it was proposing to do. “We’ve heard a lot of announcements and about publications but as I speak to you, I have not to date received any formal letter from Gecom telling me what they are doing,” he said at a party news conference. He added that some disclosures were made at a meeting with parties but he argued that correspondence should have come much earlier to permit stakeholders to look at what would be happening. “So, my concerns have not been addressed because I can’t hold them to anything that they have said in writing,” he added.
