Halt granting of Guyanese citizenship to Venezuelans, bar them from voting in elections- AFC

Last Updated on Saturday, 4 November 2023, 10:34 by Denis Chabrol

AFC Leader Khemraj Ramjattan, AFC Chairman Catherine Hughes and former AFC General Secretary David Patterson

Worried that Venezuelans could determine the outcome of Guyana’s elections or secession of Essequibo County, the Alliance For Change (AFC) said all Venezuelans who have been granted Guyanese citizenship must be barred from voting in this country’s elections and that the opposition be integrally involved in verifying who are the recipients.

“All Venezuelans granted citizenship in view of the severely strained relationship we have now with Venezuela not be allowed to be on the voters roll,” AFC Leader Khemraj Ramjattan. In recent weeks Venezuela has escalated its threat by planning a referendum on December 3, 2023, to effectively annex Essequibo as a State and grant citizenship and identification cards to residents there.

At the same time, that political party called for a transparent system to be put in place to allow the opposition to verify whether such registrants are eligible to vote here because they were born to Guyanese parents. While that party said it would not ever desire a situation where genuine Guyanese citizens, whether Venezuelan-born would ever be deprived of the vote, its leader recommended that they be “processed through an authentic system whereby the opposition can have scrutiny of all such Venezuelans.” He also demanded a review of citizenship granted to all Venezuelans over the past two years “so that the opposition can see the authenticity of such grants.

The AFC said that as a safeguard, it would be pressing for the names of all late registrants under under the amended Births and Deaths Registration Act to be made public so that stakeholders could verify whether those persons are indeed Guyanese and their births were never previously registered. Once the information is made available, he said the AFC would conduct its own investigation.

The AFC also urged government to stop granting Guyanese citizenship to Venezuelans until the International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the World Court, rules on the validity of the 1899 Arbitral Tribunal Award that settled the land boundary between the two neighbouring South American nations.

The AFC’s concerns came on the heels of Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo saying that Venezuelans born to Guyanese parents should not be prevented from voting in Guyana’s elections once they are properly registered. Foreign-born persons to Guyanese parents and spouses of Guyanese are eligible for Guyanese citizenship.

Mr Ramjattan claimed that at least 24 late registrants were Venezuelans and said that he would be asking questions in the National Assembly. He warned that the integrity of Guyana’s elections would “seriously be questioned” if the voters list is padded with the names of persons who are not authentic citizens.  He accused the People’s Progressive Party Civic-led administration of setting the stage for Venezuelan-Guyanese vote buying. “This government like to talk about other people but they are going to rig the elections long before the elections are held,” said Mr Ramjattan, a former PPP executive member until he was expelled in 2004.

While the Vice President had said previously that figures show that Guyana’s registration system was not being overrun by Venezuelans, the AFC pointed to the fact that the 2015 election was decided by one vote in Region Eight (Potaro-Siparuni). “We have situations in regions where the vote count was so close. We won by one vote, I think in Region Eight the last elections so you go now and you arrange some Venezuelans and you give them the voting rights and all of that and they can make a difference in a region,” Mr Ramjattan added.

Highlighting the fact that Guyana’s High Court has ruled that the names of registrants could not be removed so easily from the national database of registrants, AFC Executive Member, David Patterson warned that eventually Venezuelan-Guyanese could form a political party and hold the balance of power in the 65-seat National Assembly. He said a born Guyanese could also see an opportunity for getting into the National Assembly by forming a party that would represent the interests of Venezuelans here.  Further, he said Guyana’s territorial integrity could be jeopardised by such a party advocating in the House that the 160,000 square kilometre Essequibo County should secede from Guyana. “These things have serious implications,”, adding that “It is not just an opportunity for the PPP to wean them over. This is an issue for the entire country to be concerned with because of the short-sightedness and crookedness of the PPP.”

Mr Jagdeo earlier this week said nothing stopped APNU from making out a case to the Venezuelan-Guyanese to win its support at an election.