President Ali must decide on meeting with Opposition to clean Voters List - AG Nandlall

President Ali must decide on meeting with Opposition to clean Voters List – AG Nandlall

Sep 22, 2022 News

Kaieteur News – President Irfaan Ali will be the one to determine whether the Government meets with the Parliamentary Opposition to decide on mechanisms needed to address the ‘bloated’ voters list says Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall. President Ali is currently in New York attending the 77th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) underway in the US Capital.

AG Anil Nandlall

The A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance for Change (AFC) have both registered an interest in meeting with Government to find a way to clean the ‘bloated voters’ list ahead of any election. When asked about Government’s willingness to rectify the list, Attorney General Anil Nandlall said that the issue was a matter for the Head of the Government. “I will suggest that you pose that question to His Excellency, the President.

Shadow AG Roysdale Forde

The Parliamentary Opposition is adamant that a credible voters list must be provided to citizens before the holding of elections. With the likelihood of Local Government polls being held early next year, the APNU and AFC have both indicted their readiness to meet with the Government and come up with a way to remove the names of suspected dead persons and those no longer residing in Guyana, so as to prevent instances of voter impersonation on elections day.

Both parties communicated their intention to the Diplomatic Community a few weeks ago, to sit with the People Progressive Party (PPP) Government and change the laws if required, to ensure persons on the list are supposed to be there. The Foreign Missions here played a key role during the contentious 2020 elections and submitted in their election reports that a clean voters list should be priority before a next election is held since this matter contributed to strife during the election period.

AFC Leader Khemraj Ramjattan

The Opposition is hoping therefore that pressure from the international bodies will move the Government into working towards a credible list. The Opposition has also indicated to Government that it is also okay to push back the Local Government Election (LGE) date to get the list right. AFC Leader Khemraj Ramjattan insisted that the Government had not held LGE in some 20 years, and suggested therefore, that it could very well postpone the polls until August of next year to ensure a credible voters list.

Shadow Attorney General, Roysdale Forde indicated to the Kaieteur News that the Government could engage in efforts to clean the voters list rather than its current action to investigate the names that the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has already investigated. Nandlall had written to GECOM asking for the list of names that the Opposition submitted during the 2020 elections recount as names of persons either dead or out of the jurisdiction.