Jagdeo responds to ‘bloated list’ claims

Vice-President and General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, has reaffirmed that the Official List of Electors (OLE) will serve as the official voters’ list for the upcoming elections, amid claims that the list is bloated.

He was responding to Opposition allegations that the number of cash grant registrants cannot be used as a benchmark for determining eligible voters.

“We’re not saying that. We’re not saying that’s the gauge. Their registration is the number—the people on the list. The OLE will be the official list of electors. If you have any objections to names on the list, based on your groundwork, you should object to those names being included,” Dr Jagdeo told reporters at his press conference today.

He also noted that it is the Opposition’s responsibility to assist in “cleaning up” the list.

“That is how you clean up the list. You remove the names of deceased persons. We have asked GECOM to clean the list by formally approaching the GRA as part of a project—to obtain all the names of individuals who have died since 2008, when continuous registration began. I know some names have already been removed. The names should be shared with the Opposition and the government, published in newspapers, and made available online. This would allow for public scrutiny, and if there are no objections, those names can then be removed from the list,” Dr Jagdeo explained.

He continued: “We have said that this is how the names of deceased individuals can be cleared from the list. If there are fictitious names, APNU can object to them even now. However, as the Chief Justice has stated, they cannot object to Guyanese who have migrated. If their names remain on the list, they still cannot vote unless they return to Guyana to do so. It’s as simple as that.”