This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 GEORGETOWN 001350 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SOUTHCOM FOR POLAD 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/27/2015 
TAGS: PGOV PREL GY
SUBJECT: GUYANA ELECTION PREVIEW #2: CALL FOR LONG-TERM 
OBSERVERS, DIFFICULTIES WITH REGISTRATION AND BIOMETRICS 
 
REF: GEORGETOWN 1271 
 
Classified By: Political Officer Benjamin Canavan 
For reason 1.4 (b) and (d) 
 
¶1. (U) SUMMARY.  While progress continues on some fronts, 
three major problems loom with preparations for the 2006 
elections: a) the urgent need to secure long-term observers 
to monitor the registration process that began in October; b) 
hiccups in the plan to scan and cross-match all registered 
voters' fingerprints; c) some citizens' inability to obtain 
birth certificates needed to register.  The next donor 
meeting will take place on January 5. END SUMMARY. 
 
Donor Consensus that Long-Term Observers are Critical 
--------------------------------------------- -------- 
¶2. (C) The Commonwealth, European Union, and CARICOM all have 
preliminary plan to send short-term observers to monitor the 
July/August polling-day mechanics.  However, the process of 
casting and counting votes is not/not the chief concern for 
the upcoming elections and the blessing of short-term 
poll-watchers who were not in Guyana for the registration 
process will not convince disgruntled losing parties that the 
election was free and fair.  The ABCEU donor group members 
(America, Britain, Canada, European Union, United Nations) 
all agree that a long-term Election Observation Mission (EOM) 
should monitor the voter registration process that began in 
October and the creation of the 2006 voter list.  These are 
the two most contentious issues for the Guyanese electorate. 
 
¶3. (C) The focus of post-election violence in the last three 
elections has been the PNC's loss in polls declared free and 
fair by all observers.  With reason or not, the PNC has 
blamed its losses on failures in the registration process and 
compilation of the voters list.  In the run-up to the 2006 
election, PNC leaders are making very clear in private 
conversations that they dispute the legitimacy of the 
registration process and that the elections should be 
postponed two years so they can be held "properly".  In the 
meantime, they propose an interim power-sharing government 
for two years.  (Note: The PNC concerns are interesting given 
that all GECOM decisions regarding the 2006 elections so far 
have been made by unanimous votes, including the 
PNC-nominated commissioners.) 
 
¶4. (C) The worrisome difference for the 2006 election is that 
this time some PNC leaders are suggesting that "certain 
elements", who are always "unnamed" and "uncontrollable", 
will use pre-election violence to prevent/postpone the 
elections while the international community forces President 
Jagdeo to let the PNC into an interim power-sharing 
government.  Ambassador, EmbOffs, and other donor missions 
reiterate the unacceptability and folly of this strategy at 
every official and private opportunity.  An independent, 
credible, expert evaluation of the registration process by a 
long-term EOM could significantly affect Guyanese perceptions 
of the registration process and could reduce the potential 
for pre-election violence.  The opportunity to do this will 
be gone by the time short-term election observers arrive. 
 
Fishing for Long-term Observers: 
5 Lines in Water, No Catches Yet 
-------------------------------- 
¶5. (SBU) Guyana's 2006 general elections began with the 
opening of continuous registration in October 2005.  Speaking 
with international donors in June 2005, President Jagdeo made 
clear that he wanted as many observers as possible for as 
long as possible.  Unfortunately, his office did not send the 
invitation letters to potential observer organizations until 
September 2005, only a month before the registration process 
began.  The Commonwealth, EU and Carter Center have already 
begun discussions with the GoG regarding plans for observer 
missions. 
 
¶6. (C) The Commonwealth sent an Observer Assessment Mission 
in early December.  The Commonwealth's Special Advisor for 
the Caribbean shares donors' view that long-term observers 
are critical, but says it is unlikely the Commonwealth can 
invest the resources necessary for long-term observers.  As 
an alternative she will make frequent short trips to Guyana 
to observe the registration process and prepare for the two 
Commonwealth observer teams that will arrive one month and 
one week prior to elections. 
 
¶7. (C) The EU is due to send an election observer assessment 
mission in January.  The EC delegate and UK High Commissioner 
are both pressing the EU to include long-term observers in 
their plans, but even if the EU acts rapidly after its 
assessment mission, it would be difficult to get an EU team 
in place before the continuous registration exercise 
concludes in mid-March. 
 
¶8. (C) Minister of Public Service Jennifer Westford told 
Charge on December 21 that she had just returned from 
discussions with Jason Calder and President Carter in Atlanta 
regarding the Carter Center sending observers.  She said the 
Carter Center "will send a team in two or three weeks to look 
around".  Post's USAID mission has also encouraged the Carter 
Center to send long-term observers and has offered funding, 
but has not yet received any feedback. 
 
9 (C) The Canadian High Commissioner appears to have given up 
on getting an OAS long-term observer in place.  He reported 
that Canada is now seeking to fund a long-term observer via 
the UN.  Canada hopes that the UN might be able to react 
quickly enough to get an observer on the ground soon enough 
to be here during the critical registration period. 
 
¶10. (C) OAS A/SYG Ramdin separately told Ambassador and other 
donor chiefs that he seeks to invigorate long-term 
involvement of OAS in strengthening democracy and governance 
in Guyana.  The OAS mission in Guyana is moribund at best and 
apparently unaware (and seemingly uninterested in) OAS plans 
for involvement in the upcoming election. 
 
Problems with Voter Registration 
-------------------------------- 
¶11. (C) The donor community remains concerned that the 
requirement--new for the 2006 election--that new registrants 
show a birth certificate or passport as proof of 
age/citizenship may disenfranchise many potential voters. 
More importantly, even if the absolute numbers affected are 
relatively small, this problem is tailor-made for forces that 
seek to disparage the electoral process.  Canadian High 
Commissioner Picard met with Minister of Home Affairs Gail 
Teixiera on December 9 to discuss the issue and briefed the 
donor community the next day.  According to Picard, Teixeira 
acknowledges the urgent need to implement measures to correct 
this problem.  However, Teixeira warned that other senior 
government officials may not share this sense of urgency and 
are reluctant to take the necessary steps to address the 
problem.  The donors agreed to press the birth certificate 
issue further.  To that end, Picard sent a letter to Teixeira 
on December 16 with copies to Head of the Presidential 
Secretariat Roger Luncheon a 
 
SIPDIS 
nd the Chairman of GECOM Steve Surujbally.  The letter 
states: "Given the importance to ensure that all citizens who 
are entitled to vote can exercise that right, the Donor 
community would like to know what measures the Government of 
Guyana plans to take in order to ensure that information 
about late birth registration is widely available and that 
applications are processed in an efficient and timely manner 
so as to enable voters to register with GECOM as soon as 
possible."  The letter also requests a briefing by the 
responsible GoG officials.  The donors hope that the letter 
will put the issue on the cabinet's agenda for action. 
 
¶12. (C) On December 23, Teixeira informed Charge that she had 
met with GECOM, the General Register Office (GRO), the 
Ministry of Local Government, and the Ministry of Amerindian 
Affairs (MAA) to address the registration issue.  She said 
that in 2004 the GoG had undertaken a birth registration 
drive in the interior with MAA Community Development Officers 
(CDOs) and GRO personnel collaborating to late register 4,000 
people.  The GoG plans to leverage this experience by sending 
the CDOs out to find others who still need to register, help 
them prepare their affidavits and documents, and then present 
them to GRO. 
 
¶13. (C) Although Teixeira felt that the bulk of unregistered 
births are in the interior, she said the elderly who do not 
have birth certificates face problems, too.  They may have 
voted in the past when registration rules were enforced less 
strictly.  However, if they have since moved or lost their ID 
card, they will not be able to re-register.  Teixeira 
complained that people are confused over the voter 
registration process and that she does not understand why 
GECOM will not accept baptismal certificates as adequate 
proof of citizenship, even joking that these are probably 
more reliable than GRO-issued birth certificates.  Teixeira 
encouraged Charge to bring future concerns with voter 
registration to her attention, as the GoG does not want to 
disenfranchise anyone. 
 
Despite Fingerprint Analysis, Voter List to be Contentious 
--------------------------------------------- ------------- 
¶14. (C) GECOM is moving ahead with a plan to scan and 
cross-match fingerprints to eliminate any multiple voter 
registrations.  A team from the Electoral Office of Jamaican 
(EOJ) is scheduled to arrive in January to scan approximately 
450,000 sets of fingerprints from the 2001 final voters list 
(2001 OLE) and an anticipated 60,000 from newly registered 
voters.  EOJ will then cross-match all the prints to look for 
duplicate registrations.  The project is scheduled to take 
three months.  Donors are skeptical about the EOJ project for 
several reasons, primarily GECOM's inability to provide the 
results of 500 sample fingerprint scans EOJ took during an 
exploratory visit in November; also GECOM's doubtful ability 
to negotiate a sound contract with EOJ; and GECOM's 
expatriate IT manager's reservations about the project. 
 
¶15. (SBU) The PNC continues to insist on house-to-house 
verification to delete from the voters list any persons who 
have died or migrated.  This is already a source of serious 
dispute between the PNC and GECOM and could trigger future 
conflict.  Regardless of whether their complaints are valid, 
opposition members are exasperated and angry that GECOM, in 
almost five years, has taken no action to rid the 2001 OLE of 
persons not qualified to vote.  The detailed timeline for 
GECOM's election preparations lists house-to-house 
verification of the 2001 OLE as an activity yet to be 
completed (verification of newly registered voters is 
ongoing).  However, the GECOM Chairman told donors he has no 
intention to do this verification. 
 
Broken Server 
------------- 
¶16. (C) GECOM has tried and failed to switch on the 
long-dormant server that contains the official 2001 OLE.  The 
Joint International Technical Assessor (JITA) said that GECOM 
is waiting for parts to repair the server.  News of this 
technical difficulty surfaced three weeks ago.  Opposition 
members have latched onto it as an example of GECOM's 
ineptitude and as further justification for their 
condemnation of GECOM's Chairman. 
 
ID Cards behind Schedule 
------------------------ 
¶17. (U) Production of ID cards is two months behind schedule 
as GECOM is waiting for necessary equipment to arrive.  The 
JITA told the donor community that the earliest ID card 
production will begin is late February or March.  This would 
still leave three to four months to print and distribute the 
cards and is not cause for concern at this time. 
THOMAS