GUYANA | President Ali dismisses Opposition’s threat of no clean list, no election

GEORGETOWN, Guyana, August 8, 2022 - Guyana’s President Dr. Irfaan Ali has dismissed Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton’s threats that no more elections can be held if the electoral list was not cleared of deceased and migrated persons.

Norton pointed out that “If the government  is not prepared to give us a clean voters list, we [will] 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.” 

However, Ali countered that: “The list is not the problem. His integrity is the problem. His inability to recognise democracy and his inability to abide by the rule of law and his inability to respect the will of the people is the problem and he needs to fix it,” he said.

He told reporters in Buxton, East Coast Demerara that the same national register of registrants had been used to generate the voters list in 2011 when a minority People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC) administration had been elected and then defeated in 2015. “Apparently, this is only a problem when you don’t win an election,” Dr Ali said.

Mr Norton’s People’s National Congress Reform-led coalition of A Partnership for National Unity+Alliance For Change has accused the PPPC of getting persons to vote in the names of deceased and migrated persons.

The PPPC has often dismissed that accusation, saying there were sufficient safeguards to prevent substitute voting.

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.

At the conclusion of the 2020 General Elections, CARICOM, the OAS and other observer missions had recommended that steps be taken to create a new list of electors.

 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.