President Bharrat Jagdeo has promised to investigate concerns raised by the PNCR about the difficulties some persons experience in being registered, due to the inability of the General Registrar’s Office to deliver birth and marriage certificates in a timely manner.
The main opposition party, during a press briefing last Thursday, said it had written to the Guyana Elections Commission (Gecom) urging the body “to exercise its authority by insisting that the obstacles to registration are removed speedily to facilitate the registration of voters during the claims and objections period.”
Questioned about this on Friday, during a press briefing at State House, Jagdeo said that if true, it is a legitimate concern. “If people are not registered because of some fault of some government agency or Gecom, that’s a legitimate concern and I will look into it and address it,” Jagdeo said. “I will have concerns about that too, not just the opposition if that were the case,” he said. “I’ll have to examine that and whatever it takes to remedy that situation, we should all work urgently to get that done within the constitutional time frame,” he continued.
On Thursday, the PNCR said that a team led by its General Secretary Oscar Clarke met the chairman and commissioners of Gecom to discuss matters of concern, following the conclusion of the continuous registration process. During this meeting, issues of mutual interest were discussed, including “the difficulty faced by some eligible persons in being registered because of their inability to obtain, in a timely manner, the relevant source documents such as birth and marriage certificates from the General Registrar’s Office.”
The PNCR said it appreciates the concerns expressed by the chairman and other members of Gecom on this matter and “the efforts reportedly made so far to encourage the administration to implement procedures to remove this difficulty.
“Gecom, however, cannot abdicate its overall responsibility for the conduct of free, fair and transparent elections,” the party added. “The inability of eligible persons to register affects their constitutional right to participate in the decision-making process of the state and cannot be dismissed as trivial.”
According to the party, both the government and Gecom “have a duty to ensure that all steps are taken to have all eligible Guyanese registered” and thereby allow them to vote at elections.
