Govt, Opposition spar over amendment to elections act

Jun 03, 2025 News

---

…as House passes Bill to cater for deputy supernumerary returning officers

By Shania Williams  

Kaieteur News- The National Assembly on Monday passed the Representation of the People (Amendment) (ROPA) Bill 2025, which makes provision for deputy supernumerary returning officers to be appointed in electoral sub-districts in Regions 3, 4, and 6.

The amendments, introduced by Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Mohabir Anil Nandlall, SC, were met with strong opposition from the APNU+AFC, who argued that what the country urgently needs was a clean voters’ list and the implementation of biometrics as fundamentals for credible elections. The Bill amends Sections 2(1) and 33C (1) of the Representation of the People Act (ROPA) and the National Registration Act. According to the Legal Supplement published on May 16, Section 2(1) was amended to redefine the term “supernumerary returning officer” as “a deputy supernumerary returning officer”. Section 33C (1) was revised by replacing the word “shall” with “may”, introducing discretion regarding the revision of the Official List of Electors and the roll for non-resident electors under certain circumstances.

Attorney General Nandlall explained, “The amendment is very simple… When we enacted the Bill in 2022, we omitted to include in the definition of a supernumerary returning officer, someone to deputise his/her function. When one draws the analogy between the supernumerary returning officer and the returning officer as the supernumerary returning officer will be a miniaturize version of the returning officer, you realise that the returning officer has a deputy in ROPA but in the amendments that we did, we did not include a deputy for the supernumerary returning officer. And that is all that the bill is intended to correct. In my view, a supernumerary returning officer if he or she is not there someone can deputize by operation law and by normal grammatical cannons of interpretation.” However, Clause 3 of the amendment, pertaining to the revision of the electors’ list, was later withdrawn by Nandlall during the debate following objections from the opposition. The Speaker subsequently struck out the clause.

One of the central provisions of the amendment is the reorganisation of vote tabulation for electoral districts (Regions) 3, 4, and 6 (Guyana’s most populated districts). Nandlall stated that electoral sub-districts will now be created within these regions, where tabulation will be conducted at the subdivision level rather than centrally at the Ashmins Building.

Nandlall noted, “The intent of those amendments is to ensure that in these very populous districts, we have the tabulation exercise which would ordinarily be done by the returning officer in one central place in each electoral district that that tabulation exercise  which is stipulated as a mandatory course in ROPA that this exercise will take place not in one central place but will be done in electoral sub-districts which we have created now using known electoral divisions which have existed in our system since we introduce proportional representation.”

He further explained, “Region 4 now has four sub-electoral districts: East Bank Demerara, East Coast Demerara, and North and South Georgetown using conventional boundaries. The votes cast in each sub-district will be ascertained by a new officer now styled ‘supernumerary returning officer’ in the particular sub-district.”

Nandlall referenced the controversial 2020 election tabulation at Ashmins Building, saying, “For the public, it simply means that the exercise we saw on March 4 at Ashmins Building… will now take place in Region 4 at four different centres. That obviously is being done to avoid the fraudulent fiasco that erupted at the Ashmins building and to avoid electoral mischief…”

Opposition outrage over voters’ list and biometric absence

Meanwhile, the opposition, led by MP Roysdale Forde, SC, categorically rejected the amendments, insisting that a clean, credible voters’ list is essential before any legislative reform is undertaken. Forde declared, “This government has failed to implement recommendations from every single election observer from the 2020 elections. The CARICOM 2020 report said as a minimum condition for electoral reform, there is an urgent need for a total re-registration of all voters in Guyana. The government has failed to do so. The government has failed through the Elections Commission which has representatives on board to support the opposition’s call for the total re-registration.”

He also cited findings from the OAS electoral mission report: “They say the official list of electors for the 2020 elections contains 666,998 names, a number that is relatively high in relation to the estimated population of Guyana 785,000.” Forde also criticised the government for failing to introduce biometric legislation: “There is no rational argument which could be advanced for the omission the failure of this government to bring biometric legislation. They were able to implement biometrics for millions of persons within six months for the cash grant, but the government has failed to bring such legislation which would only improve the electoral system and to reduce fraud and voter impersonation that marred the last elections,” he said.

Other speakers on the bill include: Minister of Local Government Sonia Parag, Minister of Agriculture Zulfikar Mustapha and Opposition MPs: Amanza Walton-Desir, Ganesh Mahipaul and Tabitha Sarabo-Halley.

---

---