The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) will be proceeding immediately with its plans for house-to-house registration this year. Confirming this with the Guyana Standard moments ago was GECOM Commissioner, Vincent Alexander.
He explained that three decisions were taken today. The first is that the GECOM Commissioners will advise the powers that be that elections cannot be held in 90 days. Alexander said, “The second is that we advise the powers that be that there needs to be an appropriation from Parliament for us to get the money for any elections in this year. The appropriation we have is not for elections. It is for House-to-House registration. And thirdly, while we are waiting on them to make decisions…we will proceed with our planned programme which includes house-to-house Registration.”
Asked to say how long the registration process will now take, Alexander said that the Secretariat will have to provide advice to the Commissioners in that regard.
The GECOM Commissioner added, “So we will basically move forward with our 2019 programme while we wait on them to (pronounce on) those two conundrums we have given to them. So chances are, they can come back to us before we start house-to-house registration…The immediacy we will be moving with on this matter right now is the preparation, not the actual registration.”
Alexander said that even though the Commissioners are clear that elections cannot be held in 90 days, no comments were made on any projected date now that house-to-house registration will be the way forward.
Last week Friday, the media fraternity pressed Minister of State, Joseph Harmon on when the Government will be convening a sitting of the National Assembly to deal with issues related elections. Harmon noted that while it is an important matter, there is not enough government business on the agenda for a sitting to be called.