GUYANA | Any new elections must have clean voters list says Norton...Share the oil money says David Hinds

GEORGETOWN, GUYANA, August 5, 2022 - The Aubrey Norton led parliamentary opposition A Partnership for National Unity+Alliance For Change -APNU/AFC- coalition and the Working People's Alliance, WPA, has warned the Irfaan Ali Administration that they will will not tolerate the holding of any future elections should they perceive that the voters lists on which the elections are to be held are padded.

“We are organising to get bigger and bigger and the PPP (People’s Progressive Party) must know and you must be prepared. If they are not prepared to give us a clean voters list, we must do everything to ensure there is no election with the dirty list,” Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton said, adding that “we need to prevent them from rigging the next election.”

He also said the struggle for a clean voters list would be linked to the removal of Retired Justice Claudette Singh as Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission because she has been voting consistently with the PPP election commissioners to make decisions.

Addressing supporters at the Burnham Basketball Court, Norton claims that that the coalition would win the next general elections if the names of deceased persons and migrants are removed from the list. 

The High Court has long ruled that the National Database of Registrants cannot be amended or replaced from new house-to-house registration. The names of persons are removed based on claims and objections and the General Register’s Office providing the names of deceased persons to the Elections Commission.

WPA Executive Member, Dr David Hinds called for the fair and equitable distribution of the country’s oil resources. “We want all of us to get this oil money, that is why my party in the name of Dr. Clive Thomas, we said do whatever you want with the oil money, build your roads, but what you want to build but the sufferers of this country, take 10% of it and divide it equally among the 210,000 households in this country. We say we are not discriminating, every household whether you are Amerindian, East Indian, Chinese or African, you will get the same amount,” Dr. Hinds said.

He pointed out thatWhen the APNU+AFC was in government, the WPA had proposed that US$5000 be given to each household from the country’s oil wealth.

Dr. Hinds encouraged supporters to follow-up on the pledge by Golden Grove, East Coast Demerara residents to continue protesting the police shooting death of Quindon Bacchus and other grievances as part of moves to take the “struggle to another level” for economic and political power.

 “Tonight, I want you to make that pledge. We (are) not coming off the road,” he said. He hinted at stern resistance should the police attempt to break up peaceful protests. “Violence comes from the police. 

“It is they that we have to tell about peaceful protests because they’re not peaceful. We say to them that we are not a violent people but we are not cowards, we are not a violent people but we are not going to be fearful from tonight,” he said.

According to Dr. Hinds, the priorities for the coalition and the WPA are rising food prices, which he said presented “economic violence”, police brutality and discrimination in the allocation of oil money. 

“We are going to be at the table for our share of the oil money,” said Dr Hinds as he urged supporters to put their fists into the air as a sign of Black Power, Brown Power and People’s Power as he invoked the historic WPA slogan “People’s Power, No Dictator”.

Opposition Leader Norton said plans now included “going back to the village to mobilise more people” as part of a plan to secure electoral victory. General and regional elections are constitutionally due in 2025.

The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) will in the coming weeks decide whether an APNU+AFC election petition could be heard in Guyana’s courts although the High Court has thrown it out for failing to reach certain timelines.