Dishonest & desperate – Jagdeo rejects Venezuela’s propaganda on sham elections

Vice President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo has strongly condemned the propaganda emanating from Venezuelan officials regarding its sham elections for a governor of Guyana’s Essequibo region.

Venezuelan Vice President, Delcy Rodrigues, falsely shared a video, purporting to show persons boarding a boat to travel from Guyana across the Essequibo River into Venezuela to vote in Sunday’s elections.

However, that video was in fact taken at the Stabroek Market Wharf in Georgetown, where persons were crossing the Demerara River to the Vreed-en-Hoop Wharf, but was deliberately misrepresented by several Venezuelan government officials.

These actions by the Maduro regime were described by Guyana’s Vice President as a sign of desperation in Caracas.

“It is dishonest and a sign of desperation when the Vice President of Venezuela has to use a fake video to support their false claims that persons are crossing the border to vote in their elections, when in fact it was a boat operating via the Demerara River, taking passengers from Georgetown to Vreed-en-Hoop,” VP Jagdeo told this publication on Sunday evening.

Several frontline indigenous communities at Guyana’s border with neighbouring Venezuela were buzzing with patriotism, peace and calm on Sunday, May 25 – a day when the Nicolás Maduro regime had set for so-called elections to appoint a governor and legislative council for the Essequibo region – a territory that is internationally recognised as Guyana’s.

However, there were no such electoral activities held in any of the communities.

In fact, Chief-of-Staff of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF), Brigadier Omar Khan, confirmed this on Sunday evening.

“No reports of any disturbances. All quiet,” the Army Chief indicated in a brief comment to this publication.

This was witnessed firsthand during a government-organised trip to Region One (Barima-Waini), one of Guyana’s regions that shares a border with the Spanish-speaking nation. The visit was organised not just to allay fears among Guyanese over Venezuela’s threats and its spurious claims to the resource-rich Essequibo, which is two-thirds of Guyana’s landmass, but also to combat misinformation being peddled by Caracas.