Norton justifies PNCR’s refusal to submit claims and objections to GECOM

Last Updated on Friday, 14 February 2025, 23:16 by Writer

Leader of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR), Aubrey Norton on Friday said his party refused to submit any claims and objections to the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to avoid falling into a trap by the ruling People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC).

He said if the PNCR submits claims and objections, the PPPC was likely to downplay that number, the mechanism for addressing them would be difficult and would claim that the list was cleansed. “We’re not doing any claims and objections at this stage…One more round of registration and the voters list will be bigger than the population. Why should we rescue them out of that by going and talk about claims and objections?” he told his weekly news conference.

GECOM Chairman Claudette Singh has reiterated that there would be no biometric system for the 2025 general and regional elections because there was insufficient time for expert advice, procurement and deployment of equipment, and training of personnel. She has also cited the need for legislation to protect the fingerprints. Justice Singh has also ruled out the exclusive or sole use of digital fingerprint verification of electors at polling stations, saying that would be unconstitutional. For his part, Mr Norton on Friday restated that, based on the introduction of biometrics for Guyana’s elections, the same could be done in Guyana.

Maintaining that the voters list of 738,484 names is padded, he said the campaign would continue to secure digitalised fingerprint registration and verification of voters and a clean voters list to ensure this year’s election results are credible. The PNCR Leader said the opposition’s major objection is the refusal by the government refusing to give into the demand for digitalised biometrics and a clean voters list. “That objection is the major objection. All the others are secondary,” said Mr Norton who is also the Chairman of A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), a grouping of the PNCR and several other little known political parties.

Asked whether he was worried that the PNCR would lose a High Court case on the state of the voters list because of a lack of evidence from the claims and objections exercise, he said he was not and he was unaware of a court case that was referred to. Told that there was one filed—by PNCR Chief Scrutineer Carol Smith Joseph—on the matter of residency which relates to claims and objections, Mr Norton said, “our lawyers will argue that case and I don’t know the link between that case and the question you are asking.”

Last week, Mr Norton said his party had submitted its findings of Claims and Objections to GECOM and would provide details to the media at a subsequent date. However, GECOM said none was received.

Ms Smith-Joseph in December 2024 filed a court case, saying that there was need for verification of the addresses of registrants because checks have shown that addresses have on them no buildings, or dilapidated or abandoned houses in which no one lives or have lived for years; the addresses exist but no one at the address knows the Applicant/Registrant; the address is generic, for example it may be just the name of the village or town area. She fears that the integrity of General and Regional Elections and Local Government Elections and their results will be questionable, inaccurate and not credible.

Specifically, she says the Guyana Constitution provides for residency for the election of members of Regional Councils. Those elections are held at the same time as general elections with voting options listed on one ballot for both polls.

Chief Elections Officer, Vishnu Persaud, in his response to Ms Smith-Joseph’s affidavit, said in his submission that residency is a requirement but that is catered for in the claims and objections process. “However, these elections also require an electoral list to be extracted from the NRR (National Register of Registrants) and be subjected to a period of claims and objections to ensure that the persons on those lists meet the criteria to be electors for these elections.”

In his submission on behalf of Ms Smith-Joseph, Attorney-at-Law Dr Dexter Todd said, “the essence of this matter stems from GECOM’s staff during the course of its house to house verification only verifying the existence of an address and not connecting the address to a registrant. This verification process is a vital part of the process of ensuring the accuracy of the national register of registrants that is used for both the general, regional and local government elections.”

Dr Todd further argues that GECOM’s defense, of advancing the claims and objections process as the medium to address this problem, is a effectively transferring its responsibility and accountability for the accuracy of the National Register of Registrants from itself to individual residents and political parties. “The claims and objections process is intended to serve only as a final, transparent, sanitization opportunity open to the public; not a primary verification mechanism or tool for which GECOM is equipped with a full time secretariat and staff and a Commissioner of Registration specifically empowered by law to so do,” he said.