The People’s Progressive Party/ Civic has raised concerns about reports that its scrutineers have been targeted by the staff of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) and pro-government scrutineers at various locations across the country following the commencement of the Claims and Objects period for the upcoming local government polls.
General Secretary of the Party Clement Rohee during a media briefing on Monday stated that some PPP/C scrutineers have been “ejected” from Registration offices and are being ‘put to work’ in the compound of the offices.
“In other cases, the gates are locked and the scrutineers are not afforded anywhere to work. This was the case at Bell West, West Bank Demerara and Charity, Pomeroon, Essequibo. Racial slurs and epithets are hurled at PPP scrutineers by APNU/AFC scrutineers and GECOM employees at some registration offices; this occurred at Canje,” he explained.
Rohee told the media there have been reports of fake birth certificates being circulated and the PPP/C is “on the lookout” for any such document.
He said if such documents are discovered and acquired by the Party it will be handed over to the Guyana Police Force (GPF) with hopes that necessary action(s) will take place.
Meanwhile, another area of concern for the PPP/C in the upcoming LG polls is the issue of the status of the Ministerial Orders issued establishing Lethem, Mabaruma and Bartica as Municipalities.
It was noted by Rohee that questions have arisen about the status of the ‘Old Orders’ versus the ‘New Orders’ as to whether the ‘Old Orders’ should be rejected to give effect to the ‘New Orders’ establishing these Municipalities.
In addition, questions have also resurfaced with respect to the number of nominators or ‘backers’ that are required to support a list of candidates and the fact that in a number of Constituencies there are insufficient numbers of nominators/backers due to the small size in population of these Constituencies:
“The Commission is yet to resolve a number of outstanding matters with respect to voting by the Disciplined Forces at the Local Government Elections. In this connection, there are a number of laws that will have to be amended if problems are to be avoided long before March 18, 2016.”
Guyana Times was also told that the handling of the votes by the Disciplined Services in the May 2015 elections ‘gave rise to several highly suspicious occurrences.’
As such, in this respect, amendments will be needed to several sections of the Principal Act to avoid recurrences of a similar nature at the upcoming Local Government Elections Rohee further stated.
In the meanwhile, the Party will continue to uphold its principled position with respect to the lack of transparency and the imbalanced ethnic composition regarding the recruitment of GECOM staff in general and for elections day itself, he added.(kristenm@guyanatimesgy.com)
When you block a person, they can no longer invite you to a private message or post to your profile wall. Replies and comments they make will be collapsed/hidden by default. Finally, you'll never receive email notifications about content they create or likes they designate for your content.
Note: if you proceed, you will no longer be following .
Welcome to the Original Guyanese Discussion Forums, first established in 1996. Here you can discuss, ask questions or generally debate anything related to politics, movies, music, health or just gyaff away your day/night here. A note of warning, the Political forum is not for the faint of heart. We do have some rules, so please adhere to them .
Welcome to the Original Guyanese Discussion Forums, first established in 1996. Here you can discuss, ask questions or generally debate anything related to politics, movies, music, health or just gyaff away your day/night here.
Please note while you do have free access to our Forums, the Political Forum will now be a Paid Membership Forum. What does this mean? To write in the Political Forum you must be a paying member. The fee is $25.00 US per year and is non refundable. Payment can be done through PayPal. Membership is not automatically renewed and you can cancel anytime We do have some rules, so please adhere to them.
