and José Miguel Insulza, OAS Secretary General
[www.inewsguyana.com] – The Organisation of American States (OAS) has officially affirmed its intention to send a team to observe elections in Guyana which are due on May 11. The observer team is expected to be deployed approximately one week prior to the elections.
The Secretary General of the OAS, José Miguel Insulza, and the Permanent Representative of Guyana to the Organization, Bayney Karran, on Wednesday April 08, signed the agreement by which the institution will send an Electoral Observation Mission.
According to a statement from the OAS, the ceremony took place in Panama City in the context of the Seventh Summit of the Americas, to be held on April 10 and 11.
The Secretary General Insulza expressed his hope that “this will be a very good moment for Guyanese democracy,” and his conviction that, “as always, the government of Guyana will give the Mission all the facilities they need to do their job well.”
In addition, the Secretary General recalled that this will be the fifth Electoral Observation Mission that the OAS has deployed in Guyana, and announced that he has designated as Chief of Mission the former Foreign Minister and Ambassador of Belize to the OAS, Lisa Shoman.
Finally, the leader of the hemispheric institution thanked the countries that have expressed their commitment to support the Mission, and urged other member and observer countries to follow their example.
Ambassador Karran highlighted “the role that the OAS plays in strengthening democracy in the Hemisphere because democracy and good governance are fundamental to the development agenda, to human rights, to security and to so many other important areas of work.” In addition, he called the Observation Missions of the OAS “one of the areas of greatest success” of the Organization.
“This election that is about to take place on May 11 is going to be a very pivotal election in Guyana, and will have far reaching consequences for the governance of the country irrespective of the result,” said Ambassador Karran, who added that “this makes the role of the Mission much more important.”
The OAS has observed elections in Guyana in 1997, 2001, 2006 and 2011.
guyana will need more than oas to observe this coming election:::::with pnc 30 % and dwindling…with nagamoottoo failure to deliver 11% indian votes..pnc will be on the rampage knowing this will be their very last hooraaahh…felt very sad for poor nagamoottoo yesterday at city hall while granger moved away to walk up the stairs with ham green…nagamoottoo has no other choice but to put on a brave face..poor chat…the pnc crowd never even acknowledge nagamoottoo..the pnc crowd was all about their real pnc people and might have seen nagamoottoo and ramjattan and others like them as pnc stooges to rake in the votes for pnc to bring pnc happiness then they can go away…clearly this was displayed by the pnc crowd yesterday..u have to see it to believe it..its very sad..