I will not sell my integrity for all the oil in Guyana- GECOM Chair
Retired Justice Claudette Singh arrives at the Umana Yana on Friday Afternoon
Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission Justice Retired Claudette Singh on Friday told the press that she has no intentions of selling her integrity. She was at the time responding to questions about her ability to deliver creditable elections to Guyana in the upcoming March, 02, 2020 polls for which nineteen political parties have express interests in contending; fourteen of which are newbies.
“Only one way I know and that is the correct way I do not believe in, oh there are so many negative things in the newspaper, I will not sell my integrity for all the oil in Guyana, its only one way i know and that is the only way i will to deliver creditable elections.” The GECOM Chair told the media.
Today Friday is Nomination Day in Guyana where political parties would submit their list of candidates to the Guyana Elections Commission for qualification to take part in the polls. Up to the time of this report, the A Partnership For National Unity+ Alliance For Change Coalition which is headed by incumbent president, David Granger had already submitted its lists of candidates and given all clear to contest the elections. The APNU+AFC was the first party to present it’s list to GECOM on Friday.
Election Chair, Justice Singh noted that it took hard work and long nights for the commission to arrive at Nomination Day. She explained that they also had an emergency meeting on Thursday evening.
On the issue of the Revised List of Electors which saw six thousand persons remaining on same, the Chair was asked to explain the rational behind that decision by GECOM.
“Because I do not, there was no evidence that those people were not registered, they were saying that there were house lots which were found vacant and if that evidence should surface tomorrow we will deal with it, but we are not intended to disenfranchising anybody.”
Justice Singh said that all new registrants would be given new Identification Cards and so that will be another form of verification. She stressed that when they arrive to vote, if they have noted picked up those Identification Cards, they will be required to submit some form of identification.
“In the same way there were persons who never collected id cards since 2008 and they are all on the list right now” Claudette Singh explained also.
According to her, there have been no decisions just yet by the commission on if they will flag or have decided on a mechanism to flag the name of those persons who have not yet uplifted their Identification Cards.
