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Vol. 31, Issue 9 QUEENS/LONG ISLAND/BRONX/MANHATTAN Feb. 28-Mar. 5, 2020
GUYANESE
HEAD TO
THE POLLS
Bloated voters list could
present some problems
By Bert Wilkinson
Guyanese go to the polls on
Monday in the first of five general
elections in the Caribbean
trade bloc for 2020, but fears
that a compromised voters list
could present some problems
and threaten to mar what is
widely regarded as the most
important general elections in
the country’s history.
Considered as the ‘mother’ of
all elections since independence
from Britain in 1966, the polls
are being held amid hopes that
recently found offshore commercial
oil and gas deposits will
soon make Guyana one of the
richest countries in the hemisphere.
Therefore, the 2020 elections
are coming down to a straight
fight for control of oil revenues
going forward. And both of the
main parties — the governing
multiracial-multiparty coalition
led by retired Army General,
David Granger and the
main Indo-led opposition People’s
Progressive Party (PPP) of
former Minister of Housing and
Water, Irfaan Ali — both agree
that whichever outfit wins this
one could control the region’s
most resource-rich country for
decades. The stakes therefore
are extremely high.
As campaigning heightens
with less than a week to go,
attention is turning to a voters
list that most in the country of
about 780,000 think is simply
bloated, unreal and problematic.
The elections commission’s
final voters scroll contains an
astonishing 661,000 eligible voters,
a number even the commissioners
consider and an impossibility
and an improbability
given the fact that the national
schools population of students
under the voting age of 18 is
260,000.
Yet the country is going to
the polls with this list because of
court rulings barring the commission
from removing migrated
people and other categories
from the list so the two main
parties and seven or so other
small outfits which qualified to
run for seats in the 65-member
house, all say they would need
to ensure that excess ballots are
not stuffed into ballot boxes as
had happened in the past. In
the 2015 elections that pushed
out the PPP after 23 consecutive
years, the final voters list
was 585,727 with 416,000 people
actually casting votes.
As parties prepare for final
rallies at the weekend, many
of the political advertisements
on radio and television as well
Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y. Tom Williams / CQ Roll Call (CQ Roll Call via Associated Press
New laws for green card holders
By Nelson A. King
The Donald J. Trump
administration in the United
States has implemented new
laws for Caribbean nationals
and others who are permanent
residents or green card
holders.
According to the United
States Citizenship and Immigration
Services (USCIS),
Caribbean and other nationals
who failed to admit that
they are immigrants, when
filing their income tax
returns, or who failed to
report some of their income,
could result in deportation.
Caribbean men, between
18 and 25, who also failed to
register with the US Selective
Service, could also be
deported, USCIS said.
Caribbean and other immigrants
could also lose their
green cards for being on “an
extended overseas vacation,”
NBC-2 TV also reported.
It said this “could be considered
‘abandonment’ of the
green card.”
On Monday, USCIS began
implementing the Inadmissibility
on Public Charge
Grounds final rule, denying
green cards to Caribbean
and other immigrants who
may need US government
assistance.
“In light of the US Supreme
Court’s Feb. 21, 2020 decision
to stay the statewide
injunction preventing implementation
of the Final Rule
Continued on Page 12 Continued on Page 12
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