People’s Progressive Party (PPP) General Secretary Clement Rohee says if the General Register Office (GRO) is not supplying the required information in order to ensure the removal of deceased persons from the National Register of Registrants, then the laws governing the process would need to be changed.
Rohee, whose is responsible for the GRO in his capacity as Home Affairs Minister, was reluctant to cast aspersions on the failings of the GRO to provide information.
“The GRO will only send information to Gecom [Guyana Elections Com-mission] based on its records,” he said, during a press briefing at Freedom House yesterday.
“Gecom will have to think seriously about changing the laws, because if no one has gone to the GRO to register the death nor to get a death certificate, which details would be sent to Gecom to take those name off the list, then two things have to happen—you either have to consider changing the laws to ensure those names are taken off,” he said. He did not state what the second initiative would need to be.
Rohee said he was aware that Gecom was internally looking at this issue but did confirm that the PPP would be asking the government-nominated members of the commission to raise the issue. During the press briefing, Rohee maintained the party’s criticisms in relation to Gecom’s work even though many of those same criticisms were debunked by the commission during a press briefing held last Thursday.
Rohee refused to acknowledge that the GRO has some responsibility in ensuring that deaths are registered, saying that it was Gecom which had the ultimate responsibility.
Gecom Chairman Dr Steve Surujbally last week said that having dead persons still on the Prelimi-nary List of Electors (PLE) was due to negligence by the GRO.
Dr Surujbally stated that the information disseminated by the GRO needed to be at a certain standard prior to a registrant being removed from the NRR and the PLE. Surujbally noted that the way the procedures were currently set up for flagging persons or removing them from the lists were being looked at. He denied that he was hiding behind the legislation and instead emphasised that the rules and regulations were there for a purpose. He said that it would be far more disconcerting if persons were being removed from the list and later showed up alive. “We cannot willy-nilly remove persons from the voters’ list,” Surujbally stated.
“I cannot review the Ministry of Home Affairs’ policy. General Register Office comes under that ministry—a ministry or department that, to this day, is not, is not computerised! Can you believe that? But be that as it may, there is efficiency. I am not saying that they are inefficient, there are laws that we have to go by… it should be not incumbent but it should be in our interest to try and tell them look send the damn list,” Surujbally told a press conference.
Rohee yesterday dismissed suggestions that the constant criticism of Gecom’s handling of the PLE was based on fear and a move by the party to place blame should it lose more votes during a general election. “Some people are getting the impression we are desperate… that is totally out of our minds. What we are concerned about is no stone is left unturned,” he said.
He was responding to the recent comments by APNU Shadow Local Government Minister Ronald Bulkan that the PPP’s constant criticism of Gecom was frivolous and intended to pre-empt a loss at the polls.
Rohee stated that the party has done its part in checking over the PLE and told members of the media that “we have a right to question everything” when asked about the party’s aggressive approach when it came to Gecom’s processes.
He shied away from stating whether the party was satisfied with the current safeguards in place to ensure that the names of the deceased are not used for voting. “Some persons speak as though they are unaware of the numerous instances in which the dead voted in this country’s national elections supervised by an elections commission,” Rohee stated, in a clear reference to Surujbally, while adding that the PPP will oppose any attempt to “manipulate the voters’ list.”
The issue was already tackled multiple times by Gecom officials, including the Deputy Chief Elections Officer Vishnu Persaud, who has stated that the various identification verifications at the polling stations meant that no one could simply show up claiming to be a deceased person and cast a vote.
