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GECOM unable to provide composition of registrants
The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), the entity responsible for the administration and conduct of elections in Guyana, is unable to provide information on the make-up or composition of registrants. According to the entity, it has no database from which information such as the nationality or ethnicity of registered persons could be extracted.
GECOM PRO
Vishnu Persaud
Public Relations Officer, Vishnu Persaud, explained to Kaieteur News last week that the agency registers Guyanese, but does not keep data based on the background of registrants. Persaud explained that under the National Registration Act Chapter 19:08 the Commission has to register every citizen who is older than 14 or would attain the age by a specific date.
Those persons are then entered into the National Register of Registrants and this list produces a preliminary list of voters. The list goes through a phase of claims and objections for persons not registered to get onto the list. The objections may speak to clarifications on a person who might be dead, but who ends up on the voters list. This list is revised and is also put up for public scrutiny before the official list is made.
In the whole process, Persaud stated, Guyanese are registered since the process of naturalization “is totally outside of GECOM’s remit.” He said that the process has nothing to do with the agency; however, “If someone had gone through the process and had become naturalized then that person would come with his naturalization certificate and birth certificate.”
Persaud continued that GECOM would then be legally obligated to register that person once he fulfills also other obligations such as age.
In the case of the Chinese influx, which seems to be occurring in Guyana, Persaud said, “If we are saying this person is Chinese, we also have many other Guyanese who are of Chinese membership. We have no way of differentiating native Chinese or those who became nationalized. They would be entered as Guyanese. We would not differentiate from a Guyanese born, Chinese or otherwise.”
They are qualified on the basis of being naturalized, he said.
He said there is no specific category that non-Guyanese born registrants fit into. “We don’t use ethnicity to differentiate anything. “It is one database that contains Guyanese citizens who qualify for registration.”
Kaieteur News was told that the Ministry of Home Affairs is responsible for the processing of all foreigners.
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