Hon. Irving Pearman to scrap the annual voter registration system and accused Government of downplaying this year's registration.

His comments came after Government announced that by April 18, 30,339 people were registered to vote, down more than 3,700 people from the record 34,054 registered last year.

Mr. Wade said Government was deliberately downplaying voter registration this year, and suggested it was planning an election for some time after June 15, when the new voters list comes into effect.

But Mr. Pearman denied the claim and urged people to register to vote.

He and Registrar General Mrs. Marlene Christopher said people should check whether they are registered on the draft lists available in every post office.

"Scrutineers are out there working to register people,'' Mr. Pearman said.

"I would ask people to take the opportunity to check whether they are registered and if they have not, to fill out another form.'' "We will continue to advertise registration through April. I am confident that we will increase registration,'' he said.

Mr. Pearman said he would consider abolishing annual registration, a promise he made when he was last Home Affairs Minister.

But he said it was not a priority at the moment. Immigration and industrial relations were more important issues for the Country than voter registration, he said.

Mr. Wade claimed the low level of publicity about the registration campaign suggested that an election was in the offing.

And he said it was difficult to persuade people to register because of disillusionment with politics and politicians.

"The present attitude of people to politicians and politics and general disgust at having to do this every year means that people are saying, we are not going to do it,'' he said.

"Politicians have not had the best public image over the past few months.

People are disillusioned with politics in general and scrutineers are having to be much more persuasive to get people to register,'' he said.

Mr. Wade said the low level of registration was likely to harm the Progressive Labour Party more than the United Bermuda Party.

"It is their people who register as part of a routine,'' he said. "People who tend to support the PLP do not register as regularly. People are strung out and these things are secondary to finding a job, feeding the family or trying to pay the electricity bill.

Mr. Wade said the PLP would certainly call for annual registration to be abolished when the House resumes next month.