APNU won’t allow PPP to control strongholds, will continue pressing for clean voters list- Norton

Last Updated on Friday, 21 October 2022, 10:50 by Denis Chabrol

Chairman of A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), Aubrey Norton said that People’s National Congress Reform-led collective would not allow the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) to take political control of the councils in its strongholds in the March 13, 2023 Local Government Elections (LGE).

“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,” he told Demerara Waves Online News. Pressed on whether that meant APNU would contest only in its strongholds, he said he was not saying “where I am going to contest”. He pointed out that he did not say by what means APNU would realise its determination to block the PPP from controlling opposition strongholds. “I would keep whatever means to myself,” he said.

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

Mr Norton said 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,” said Mr Norton, a Cuban and Guyanese trained Political Scientist.

The local elections would be held for 10 towns and 70 neighbourhood councils.

He refused to address the question of whether APNU would go to the polls without the government addressing the demand for a clean vorers list. “If you want credible elections, you will have a clean voters list. If you don’t want credible elections, then you are opening up some new areas that we will have to deal with,” he said.  Mr Norton, who is also Opposition Leader, has already publicly offered the APNU and AFC support to amend Guyana’s constitution and the relevant electoral laws to allow for the cleansing of the list and the use of biometric identification of voters at polling stations but the government is holding on  tenaciously to a High Court ruling that names cannot be removed from the national register of registrants under current Guyana Constitution provisions.

APNU’s coalition partner, the Alliance For Change (AFC), has already said it would boycott the polls because the voters roll is dirty and would lead to results that would not be recognised by at least half of Guyana’s population as lacking credibility.

Asked if the government does not address the opposition’s demand for a clean voters list, he would only say that “my work is to press for a clean voters list” but declined to disclose the next steps if the government does not give in.

The APNU Chairman slammed the PPP-led incumbent central government for going ahead with the naming of March 13 as LGE Day, despite months of lobbying for steps to be taken to produce a credible voters list. “The government is an arrogant government that wants to rig and, therefore, for them the victory could only be based on a rigged process. If they are serious about democracy, they would not press ahead, they  would get a clean voters list,” he said.

The PPP continues to maintain that there are sufficient safeguards at polling stations to prevent voter impersonation and other forms of irregularities. These include having representatives of political parties at each polling station to verify each voter’s identification presented or by folio.

President Irfaan Ali Thursday night appealed to all stakeholders, including the opposition parties, to contest LGE.  Government has allocated some $2.9 Billion to the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) for preparatory works  to ensure the successful planning and execution of LGE.