Number of cash grant registrants can’t be used as gauge for eligible voters- opposition

Last Updated on Friday, 7 February 2025, 23:24 by Writer

Amid persistent claims that Guyana’s voters list is bloated, the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) and the Alliance For Change (AFC) on Friday said they were not comforted by the fact that more than 600,000 persons were registered for the government’s GY$100,000 cash grant compared to the just over 700,000 eligible voters.

While the criteria for receiving the payout are being 18 years and older as of January 1, 2025, and in Guyana, the PNCR Leader and APNU Chairman, Aubrey Norton cast doubt on the credibility of the cash grant figures. He claimed that the number of cash grant beneficiaries was “inflated” as a mechanism for corruption. “The PPP figures do not add up and so I do not believe that there are 600,000 people there.” Mr Norton added that “it is virtually impossible to have 600,000 people in Guyana when you have the kind of migration and you don’t have a birth-rate that is keeping abreast with it.”

Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo on Thursday told his weekly news conference that its “600,000 people you got to go to and people will get their money” in addressing a question on status of the cash grant distribution. Sources said among the beneficiaries are visiting Guyanese, who arrived through the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, Timehri, and the Eugene F. Correia International Airport, Ogle, and Lethem.

AFC Chairman, David Patterson said he was informed that a number of deceased persons’ names had appeared on the cash grant register. “I don’t know why we would be taking that number as an indication of our voting population; absolutely not” he said. Government had stated that the registration process is above board.

The PNCR-led A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), AFC and the Working People’s Alliance have all contended that the voters list, so far totalling 738,484 names, opens the door to multiple voting and voter impersonation.

The privately-owned independent Stabroek News newspaper reported in January, 2025 that the census unofficially puts Guyana’s population around 812,000 persons including Venezuelans. The government estimates that there are about 40,000 Venezuelan migrants here.

While Guyana’s Constitution prohibits the removal of names from the National Database of Registrants unless there is incontrovertible proof that registrants have died, there was a 72.58 percent or 480,061 votes from a total of 661,378 eligible voters in the 2020 general and regional elections.

An examination of the turnout at Guyana’s general elections from 1992 to 2020 shows that the average is 78.23 percent compared to 89.67 percent from 1964 to 1980. The only available figure for the 1985 polls was that 291,175 persons had voted.

In 2015, 412,012 of the 570,708 registered electors voted; in 2011, 346,604 of the 475,496 eligible voters cast their ballots; in 2006, 338,839 of the 492,369 persons on the voters roll voted; in 2001; 403,769 of the 440,185 eligible voters exercised their franchise; in 1997 elections, 408,057 of the 461,481 electors voted and in 1992, regarded as the first free and fair elections in 28 years, 308,852 of the 381,299 electors voted.