AFC still to decide on its participation in Local Govt Elections

Oct 22, 2022 News

Kaieteur News – The Alliance for Change (AFC) is still to decide whether it will participate in the upcoming Local Government and Regional Elections (LGEs), set for March 13, 2023.

That decision, according to the AFC Leader, Khemraj Ramjattan, is left to the party’s National Executive Council (NEC). The council will also decide whether the party will team up with its Coalition partner, the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) to contest the LGEs.

AFC Leader, Khemraj Ramjattan

Speaking at a Press Briefing on Friday, Ramjattan acknowledged that the cost of contesting the election alone is “always a big factor”.

The AFC Leader also noted that the “bloated” voters list that does not accurately capture the voting population is a further impediment to the party’s participation in the upcoming LGEs.

Ramjattan lamented the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM)’s allegations on a number of issues that came to the fore during the March 2020 General and Regional Elections. These issues include alleged ghost voting and allegations of rigging.

The AFC Leader noted that his party has since recommended that a sample of the list be taken to see how many persons who are 65 years old are deceased, but whose names are on the list, and that it was to no avail.

Moreover, Ramjattan noted that the recommendations made by the observer missions are yet to be implemented. Among the recommendations was a house-to-house re-verification exercise to remove the dead, along with those citizens who had migrated, and present a clean list of electors for future elections.

Alluding to the High Court’s ruling that residency could not be a reason for removing the names of persons from the voters’ list, the AFC Leader said the voters’ list could be cleansed by fresh house-to-house registration as had been done in 2008. He said the Diplomatic Community has been told that his party would prefer a postponement of the LGE by as much as six months until “we get the list right” by conducting a house-to-house exercise to “purify or verify the list.”

Nevertheless, the AFC leader did not rule out the possibility of the opposition filing court action to get new house-to-house registration.

“At present, the AFC believes that without these fundamental changes to the electoral system, democracy is under threat as this PPP/C regime is determined to cling to power by all means necessary,” the AFC Leader said.

Similarly, AFC Executive member, David Patterson noted the governing People’s Progressive Party has ‘shut’ down the Opposition’s proposal for a biometric system to be introduced at polling stations

“How can we, as a country, with that voters’ list say that we have free and fair elections…? Why are we continuing with a process that nobody has any faith in?” he queried.

Meanwhile, the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) has not said whether it would contest the elections, but Leader of the Opposition, Aubrey Norton has vowed that his group would ensure that the People’s Progressive Party does not control its strongholds.

APNU’s traditional strongholds are the municipalities of Georgetown, Linden, New Amsterdam, and Bartica, as well as a number of neighbourhood councils.

“The only thing I can say to you is this: We are not going to give the PPP control of any of our strongholds. We will do whatever to ensure at the end of the day we are in charge of our strongholds,” Norton stated.

The Coalition Leader vowed that his grouping would continue to press for the voters’ list to be scrubbed of the names of deceased persons and emigrants. “The issue for me is not contesting. The issue for me is a clean voters list. If you want to have proper Local Government Elections, your first task is really to get a clean voters list,” he said.