The People’s Progressive Party (PPP) has condemned the APNU/AFC Government’s refusal to grant approval for the Carter Center Observer Mission to return to Guyana to observe the national recount of votes cast in the March 2, 2020, General and Regional Elections.
In a statement today, the PPP lashed out at the APNU/AFC for exploiting the use of COVID-19 to deny approval to the team, saying this is “simply wicked and pathetic”.
The PPP also stated that there is nothing preventing President David Granger from intervening in the matter, the way he did for the CARICOM team, to allow Carter Center Observers to return.
It should be noted that the Carter Center is among the group of international observers that have been publicly critical of the lack of credibility of the highly contentious Region Four count that is at the centre of Guyana’s current political turmoil. In its recount of the March 2 polling day and the events that followed, the Carter Center had stated that “Election day proceeded smoothly.”
However, they had noted that tallying went astray in Region Four when, after only half the results for the region had been tabulated in the presence of observers, the Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo abruptly announced the rest of the results, “which indicated that the ruling party had come from behind to win the election.”
The Center, in addition to other international observer missions, subsequently denounced the declaration of unverified results, saying they lacked credibility, and called for a return to the verification process. Due to concerns about their safety due to harassment by Government supporters and the COVID-19 pandemic, the team had departed Guyana but remained resolute that they are prepared to return to see the electoral process through to the end.
See full statement from the PPP
The People’s Progressive Party (PPP) condemns the de facto Government’s refusal to grant Carter Center permission to return to Guyana to complete its mission of observing March 2, 2020, General and Regional Elections. The exploitation of the COVID-19 and the use of a politically appointed and dominated Taskforce to carry out this wicked design is simply pathetic. It demonstrates the desperate lengths that the Rigging Cabal is prepared to travel, in order to deny the recount process of transparency, oversight and credibility and to lay the platform to possibly pervert the process.
The COVID-19 Taskforce comprises of several former Ministers of the de facto Government and known political hacks of APNU/AFC, including, Joseph Harmon (Chief Executive Officer), Moses Nagamootoo (Chairman), Volda Lawrence, Karen Cummings.
It would be observed that none of these persons above is a medical practitioner or in any manner professionally and technically qualified to be part of such an entity. This farce was established, specifically, to derail and frustrate the recounting process, including, the prevention of international accredited observers from returning to monitor the recount.
Their previous shenanigans include fumigation of the Author Chung Convention Center when the recount process was about to commence, over a month ago, and their threat to quarantine, for fourteen days, the CARICOM observer team.
President Granger is hiding behind this Taskforce to give himself plausible deniability. There is nothing stopping him from intervening in the manner that he did, in relation to the CARICOM team and there is nothing preventing the utilization of the same protocols used in respect of that CARICOM team from being used in relation to Carter Center and other International Observer Teams to facilitate their return to Guyana to complete the task for which they have been accredited.
The March 2, 2020, elections have not been completed and their accreditation has not been revoked. Their right to complete their mission is therefore guaranteed by both local and International Law.
Observation of elections by International Observer Teams is now a corner stone of democracy in the modern world. Many International Treaties guarantee it. To execute their election thieving design, the Rigging Cabal has disregarded all of them. By remaining silent on this issue, GECOM has violated its own decision to invite all accredited observer teams to return.
We demand that the de facto Government and GECOM, immediately, clear the way for the Carter Center and other International Observer Teams, desirous of returning to Guyana, to complete their mission, being able to do so.
