The house to house registration exercise intensified yesterday and saw registration teams dispatched to several communities countrywide accompanied by scrutineers from the two major political parties only.
The Alliance for Change (AFC) has stuck to its contention that it has been deliberately forced out of the process and so it made no sense for them to field scrutineers.
Leader Raphael Trotman in an invited comment to Stabroek News yesterday confirmed that his party had not fielded any scrutineers since there is the possibility that they may not receive a stipend from the monies allocated for the PPP and the opposition.
He said that while some of the party’s members may volunteer it would be unfair to have them in the fields working along with others who were assured of their stipend.
On the other hand, People’s National Congress Reform leader Robert Corbin told Stabroek News that his party followed procedures and submitted its list of scrutineers to the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) before hand and so scrutineers are prepared to accompany registration teams throughout the country.
The same sentiment was expressed by People’s Progressive Party general secretary Donald Ramotar who said that as far as he knew the scrutineers also accompanied teams and according to him they would have done so whether they were receiving the stipend or not.
He said it was always the responsibility of the parties to mobilise their scrutineers. The AFC and GAP/ROAR have argued that the money allocated to the opposition should be split equitably between them and the PNCR. GECOM has since said it has no jurisdiction in this matter. Corbin has said he was willing to discuss this matter with the two parties but they had not followed up on it.
Though hampered by the weather to some extent, the process was not heavily curtailed, according to a GECOM source.
The source explained to this newspaper that the law provided for the scrutineers to accompany each registration team to observe the process.
“They are legally entitled to be present,” the source reiterated.
Questioned on the fate of persons who work long hours and may miss repeated visits by registration teams, the source explained that a person must be registered at their home and added that there was no possibility for a person to leave documentation with relatives and be registered in their absence.
“If they don’t catch the team on repeated visits anytime before the exercise is completed, they would have to be registered subsequently in the continuous registration exercise,” the source said. The house to house registration exercise began on Monday and runs until July 4.
From Monday to Friday teams will visit from 3:30 pm to 6:30 pm, on Saturday and Sunday from 10 am to 5 pm and on holidays from 10 am to 3 pm.
Out of the house to house registration the commission will compile a fresh register of registrants which will form the basis for the list for future elections.
