Opposition Leader meets with GECOM Chair

Nov 20, 2019 News

Leader of the Opposition, Bharrat Jagdeo, met with the Chair of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Claudette Singh, yesterday, at the Commission’s Kingston Headquarters.

Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo and GECOM Chair Claudette Singh

Joined by former Attorney General, Anil Nandlall, and People’s Progressive Party (PPP) presidential candidate, Irfaan Ali, Jagdeo endeavored to make several pitches to Justice Claudette Singh about the Secretariat’s election preparations.
The foremost issue is that of the use of the House-to-House data. The party has continued to dispute the validity of the data, since PPP scrutineers did not accompany the process. He had told the press that he would make a case to the Chair and hope that she sees reason.
Thus far, the GECOM Chair’s position on the House-to-House data is that it is legal and valid. She had said as much during multiple engagements with the press corp.
There are many new voters registered during the House-to-House exercise, and they were instructed not to participate in the Claims and Objections exercise which followed, and is now over. If the House-to-House data is disregarded, those new registrants would be off the Revised List of Electors (RLE) and wouldn’t be able to vote unless GECOM comes up with some mechanism to have them registered again.
During his most recent press conference, Jagdeo was posed that question and he responded that GECOM should have heeded his warning much sooner.
A source at GECOM told this publication that Justice Singh will raise this matter with the full Commission during today’s statutory meeting. The usual Tuesday meeting was postponed.
Kaieteur News understands that the Opposition Leader was also seeking to find out the legal basis for the Chair’s decision to have a supplemental list accompany the Official List of Electors (OLE) for unverified registrants. Commissioners aligned with the Opposition have also uttered this concern.

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