Demerara Waves Online News- Guyana Riding on the Crest of Truth
Last Updated on Friday, 6 December 2019, 18:34 by Writer
United States Ambassador, Sarah-Ann Lynch speaking with election commissioners Vincent Alexander and Desmond Trotman.
The March 2020 general and regional council elections are unlikely to be postponed as preparations are on track, according to two election commissioners.
“I have no reason to think we can’t,” governing coalition-backed elections commissioner, Vincent Alexander said when asked whether the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) would meet the March 2, 2020 general elections. “There is no indication that the procedures that we have in place will not work in a normal way,” added commissioner, Charles Corbin.
Corbin said none of the issues were new and have been experienced in the past. “There is nothing that is happening that is currently outside of that schedule…it means that we will deliver for elections… The schedule is to deliver for March 2nd,” he added.
United States (US) Ambassador to Guyana, Sarah-Ann Lynch on Friday remarked that many tasks are to be completed by GECOM but she expressed optimism that Guyanese would go to the polls on the date already constitutionally declared by President David Granger. “I know that they are working very hard to ensure that the March 2nd elections are free and fair and there is a lot of work to be done,” she said. She said the US was funding an expert on civic and voter education for GECOM.
The elections management agency is yet to decide on whether it would use data from the house-to-house registration exercise that was held from July to August, 2019, the cross-matching of fingerprints of registrants, and what mechanism would be used to flag the names of more than 17,000 persons who have so far not collected their national identification cards to ascertain whether they are alive and are in Guyana.
GECOM has already issued a call for candidates and named January 10, 2020 as Nomination Day. After verification, GECOM is expected to move towards the printing of ballot papers and other key election day materials overseas.