GEORGETOWN, Guyana - Opposition Leader, Aubrey Norton, Friday insisted that the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) should ensure that enhanced biometrics are used in the upcoming regional and general elections later this year.
Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton, speaking at news conference on Friday (CMC Photo)GECOM chair, retired justice Claudette Singh has said that the introduction of biometrics at the Place of Poll is not feasible within the time presently available before the elections are held.
GECOM has said it wanted to “categorically state” that it will ensure the safeguards and integrity of its processes in the conduct of elections that will guarantee public confidence in a system “that is free, fair, transparent and credible” while acknowledging that the issue of biometrics has been a prominent matter in the public domain for quite some time.
Norton told a news conference that GECOM should move ahead with the hiring of a technical consultant to offer advice on the introduction of digital figure print capture, dismissing Singh’s position that the consultant should be hired after the elections.
“The Opposition rejects this latest proposal as inadequate and unacceptable. The GECOM chair is acting as a bias arbiter, when she should be seeking consensus, and is causing Guyanese to raise questions about her competence, integrity and courage,” Norton told reporters.
The Opposition Leader said Singh also lacks the technical competence to pronounce on the implementation of biometrics technology and project management.
“The GECOM chair lacks the technical know-how to make such a critical decision. We remain resolute in our stated positions that the integrity and credibility of the next elections cannot be held hostage to the bias, and arbitrary decision of the GECOM chair when she lacks the requisite technical knowledge to do so”.
Norton said her ruling against the use of biometrics in the next election “was totally devoid of any technical input from relevant experts and therefore remains deficient and unacceptable”.
He said instead of “dancing” around the issue, GECOM must seek proposals from expert firms on using fingerprint biometrics in Guyana for registration and voting.
Norton said GECOM needs the expert advice before it shuts the door on the issue for the upcoming elections and that the opposition has been pressing for enhanced biometrics for elections in Guyana for more than three years.
Late last month, Last week, the minority opposition Working People’s Alliance (WPA)called for mass demonstrations in a bid to force the GECOM, to reverse a decision regarding the possibility of introducing biometrics for this year’s elections.
“I wish to urge our colleagues in the joint opposition and the masses of opposition supporters, that this is a serious matter and that we have to draw the line in the sand on this matter. And we believe that it is not a gone conclusion that there will be no biometrics,” WPA executive member, Tucuma Ogunseye told a news conference.
Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo has accused the opposition of looking for an excuse to delay the polls.
Meanwhile, Norton has brushed aside statements by the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, Gail Teixeira, regarding corresponding on matters of constitutional appointments.
Teixeira has said that whenever she writes to the Leader of the Opposition, he would instead response directly to the Office of the President, resulting in a breakdown in communication.
She said the most recent breakdown was relating to the opposition’s nominees for the Local Government Commission. The ministry had written Norton requesting the submission of his nominees, but he responded, by sending his letter to the Office of the President.
“Mr. Norton has a habit of not recognising me as the person who writes him on behalf of the President. So, any correspondence sent to him on constitutional appointments, he will respond directly to the President and/or through an emissary,” Teixeira told the National Assembly recently.
“I would like to ask the Honourable Member that, as I am asked by the President to write the Leader of the Opposition, that he also provides me with his responses or correspondence, instead of always disregarding my correspondence and treating me as if I am too much beneath him for him to respond,” she added then.
But Norton told reporters on Friday that when he became Leader of the Opposition, “the president and I engaged.
“After the president engaged me, he then had a letter sent by Gail Teixeira. I then said in a letter to the president and to Gail Teixeira that Roysdale Forde will be the person identified to relate to Gail Texeira on these matters and that I, Aubrey Norton, as Leader of the Opposition, will engage the president.
“The Office of the President and Teixeira have picked up the practice of Teixeira writing straight to me. I’ve been around long enough to know that I shouldn’t accept that.
“If she continues to write me and I will continue to not respond to her and respond directly to the president, because she says she writes on behalf of the president. So, I assume that with she writing on behalf of the president, I would want somebody writing on my behalf and engaging at her level,” Norton told reporters.
