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AFC to picket GECOM today

Feb 07, 2019 News

The Alliance For Change has announced that the party will be leading a “peaceful” picketing exercise today, at noon, outside the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM)’s Kingston office.
The party’s General Secretary, Marlon Williams, said that the exercise is a response to the People’s Progressive Party (PPP)’s recent protest action, held to urge GECOM to honour the constitutional deadline of March 19, 2019, by holding General Elections before that date.
Williams said that it is in the best interest of democracy that GECOM is allowed to execute its mandate without pressure, given that GECOM’s Chief Elections Officer, Keith Lowenfield, said that the earliest date General Elections could be held is some time in the month of July, with the other option being another four to six months, after house-to-house registration is completed.
It is this announcement that energised the PPP and its supporters to protest GECOM, given that the timeline provided by Lowenfield went far past the three-month deadline mandated by the Constitution, in cases when a No-Confidence motion is successfully passed in the National Assembly.
Though Lowenfield said that the current voters’ list is valid only until April 30, he had maintained that it is not possible for GECOM to be ready for General Elections by then.
Kenny Valadares, a representative of Youths for Change (YFC), the AFC’s youth arm, was also in attendance at the party’s press conference yesterday. He said that the PPP has been mounting bullying and intimidation tactics against the Elections Commission, and that the AFC’s youth arm views Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo’s calls for early elections as a threat to Guyana’s democracy, since the voters’ list has not yet been “sanitised”, nor has new voters been added to it. He reiterated the AFC’s position that House-to-House registration is necessary for free and fair elections.
Valadares called on the People’s Youth Organisation (PYO), the PPP’s youth arm, to support the call for House-to-House registration. Valadares maintained, however, that the AFC is not attempting to force GECOM’s hand, but that the party is focused on allowing GECOM to carry out its mandate, specifically the execution of House-to-House registration, since funds were allocated for that purpose in the 2019 budget.
Cynthia Rutherford, representative of Women for Change (WFC), the AFC’s women arm, also supports the call for House-to-House Registration, and sought to explain why continuous registration for new voters, as suggested by leader of the opposition, will not be enough to ensure the list includes all eligible voters. She said that GECOM must also consider cases where persons have moved from place to place, and must have those details updated so that they don’t have to travel long distances to vote.
Rutherford expressed the WFC’s confidence in the Granger-Nagamootoo-led government to maintain a functional democracy while GECOM prepares for General Elections.
Williams said that the AFC and, by extension, the Coalition, are ready for elections, even if GECOM executes an arrangement that allows them to hold elections at a very early date. However, he believes that it is just not practical or possible to have elections held before the Constitutional deadline.

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