Ballot papers due to arrive today
According to the members of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) the secretariat is “on top of” preparations for the holding of the March 2,2020 General and Regional Elections (GRE).
“Ballots are arriving on Thursday. The OLE (Official List of Electors) is out and being distributed. Persons whose names were moved around on the voters list are being sent letters so that they will know where to vote and polling places have been identified,” governmentnominated Commissioner Vincent Alexander told reporters following Tuesday’s statutory meeting.
Opposition-nominated Commissioner Robeson Benn, also indicated that the commission has met with the observer teams from the European Union and two senior observers from the Commonwealth Secretariat.
The Commonwealth observers, former Chief Election Commissioner of India, Dr. Syed Nasim Ahmad Zaidi and former Chairman of the Ghana Electoral Commission Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, have been identified by GECOM chair retired Justice Claudette Singh as both observers and advisors to her office.
“These two gentlemen will be here from early January…those persons would be advisors to me and the Commission, as a whole, and they will also oversee the elections,” she told a press conference in December.
Meanwhile, speaking on behalf of the secretariat Chief Election Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield explained that “preparations are well advanced.”
“As it relates to the establishment of our offices [for] the [Returning Officers] and [Deputy Returning Officers] we are moving towards appointment of the staff that are required. We have engaged the police with regards to producing ballot stations. Our ballots will be here on Thursday the 7th and all concurrent activities related to the arrival of ballots we will treat with those,” he indicated.
Lowenfield explained that the 660,998 persons who appear on the Official List of Electors (OLE) will be voting at 2352 polling places.
Of that number 131 are to be housed at private residences mostly on the East Coast corridor of Region Four. In fact of the 131 private residences to be used 91 will be in Region 4.