Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo today called out the caretaker APNU/AFC Coalition over its recent stance regarding the mounting calls for international sanctions to be brought against them.
The coalition claims that the calls for international sanctions are anti-national, but Jagdeo reminded that prior to the 2015 elections, both the APNU and AFC were vociferous in making similar demands.
“[David] Granger himself had requested sanctions in the past. A long diatribe in 2014 about the country must face sanctions from abroad if [then president] Donald Ramotar didn’t end the prorogation of parliament…now he doesn’t want sanctions when he is trying to steal a whole election. And that is the duplicity of Granger and the cabal,” expressed Jagdeo, who is also the PPP/C General Secretary.
Many of Guyana’s bilateral partners including international organisations as well as countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom, have warned of sanctions and serious consequences should a new government be formed here from an electoral process that lacks credibility and transparency.
But APNU/AFC Campaign Manager, Joseph Harmon, this morning expressed concerns over these calls for international sanctions.
“I think that’s very anti-national, very anti-national and I don’t see any country in the world that actually what to invite that level of sanction on its country knowing fully well the developmental path in which we are,” Harmon told reporters at a press conference when asked about the warnings from the US and UK about “serious consequences” for those who seek to benefit from electoral fraud.
However, Jagdeo argued at a subsequent press conference that neither the PPP/C or the other small parties that contested the March 2 elections are anti-national.
In fact, he noted that it is the caretaker Coalition that is anti-national by putting the entire country and its people at risk for sanctions because of their lust for power.
“They are the ones who are anti-national. The civil society organisations, the small parties, etc, we are still trying to avoid the sanctions by asking them to do the right thing which is to have a recount done that would allow the rightful President to be sworn in and then we can avoid all of the sanctions, personal as well as national sanctions that would affect all of our people and then we can move forward with the business of governing the country, dealing with the coronavirus and dealing with everything else.”
