As international pressure continues to mount on the incumbent APNU/AFC Coalition to concede following its defeat at the March 2 General and Regional elections, PPP/C Prime Ministerial Candidate, Brigadier (ret’d) Mark Phillips, has made it clear that the Coalition will not be allowed to get away with electoral fraud as the world will not stand idly by and allow an illegal government to be foisted on the nation.
According to Phillips, during an interview broadcast on Antiguan radio NICE FM 104.3 Online, this is not the 1970s and 1980s where the entire world turned a blind eye to what was happening in Guyana.
“You hear terms like “non-interference”, those were applicable in the 1970s – the important term today is the responsibility to protect [democracy] and the international community is telling us that you’re part of the Civil Society Charter of Caricom, and similar Charters in the OAS and the Commonwealth of Nations, and we have to respect the will of the people in Guyana. We have to respect the rule of law in Guyana,” he said.
During the 1960s, 1970s 1980s, the then Peoples National Congress (PNC) Leader, Linden Forbes Burnham, blatantly rigged elections to stay in power and ruled the country in a dictatorial style.
The international community at the time, did not intervene much, and even when it did, it was met with much protest as the then PNC officials wasted no time in accusing countries of interfering in the affairs of a sovereign state.
However, it is a whole new different environment now. Following the blatant attempts to alter the results of the March 2 polls and to hand a ‘victory’ to the APNU/AFC, foreign powers affirmed their position that they will not stand idly by and allow a government to be sworn in on the basis of results that are fraudulent.
Foreign powers – including the Kingdom of Norway, the Heads of the ABCE (United States, British, Canadian and European Union) Diplomatic Missions, a group of powerful US Senators and several bodies such as The Commonwealth, Organisation of American States (OAS), Nelson Mandela’s The Elders’ Group, and CARICOM among others – have been calling for the David Granger-led APNU/AFC to concede defeat and demit office.
They have also called on the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to declare the results of the elections on the basis of the certified figures emanating from the National Recount.
The National Recount which was conducted under the scrutiny of a special Caribbean Community (Caricom) team shows the PPP/C in a landslide victory with some 15,416 more votes than its main political rival, the caretaker APNU/AFC coalition.
According to Phillips, these foreign powers are merely speaking out in support for democracy to prevail in Guyana.
“The whole world is not against Guyana; the whole world is against the APNU/AFC attempts to hold onto office after losing a popular election. The people voted for the PPP/C and the PPP/C must be allowed to form the next Government of Guyana,” the PM Candidate posited.
But there has been some push-back by the coalition and its supporters, who have attacked many of the regional and international leaders, accusing them of interfering in Guyana’s affairs.
