Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr Roger Luncheon yesterday disclosed that government has requested international observer missions to extend their stay here in order to monitor the periods before and after the May 11 general elections and the Carter Center has also been invited.
At this post-Cabinet press briefing yesterday, Luncheon announced that government is pursuing efforts “to have the presence of electoral observer missions long before E Day…and extended well beyond that day too.” He disclosed that government has written several international electoral observers, namely the United Nations, CARICOM, the Organisation of American States, UNASUR and the Carter Center among others. The Carter Center which under former US President Jimmy Carter played a pivotal role in securing sweeping electoral reforms for the landmark 1992 elections has not observed recent polls here.
Other bodies written to are the UK branch of the Commonwealth Parlia-mentary Association, the Organisation ofIslamic Cooperation and the governments of India and South Africa.
The first four bodies listed, he said, have already signalled that they will be here. “So far the results have been indeed promising,” he said. “What we have discussed with missions is their presence prior to, and this is for an extended period, and after elections.”
Luncheon said that the Carter Center has also been written to and noting that since the Center played a pivotal role in observing the 1992 elections, opined that they have continued to show interest in elections here. He added that the Atlanta, Georgia-based Center has recently completed an on-the-ground assessment here to determine if they will be sending their representatives for the electoral observation process.
“It is my impression that the contributions since 1990 and the role they played in the role of democracy…has made this Guyana an abiding concern of theirs,” he stressed. The Center had withdrawn from intensive engagement here after a visit in 2004 by Carter had been unable to break the political deadlock between the government and the PNC.
Luncheon noted that a specified period for monitoring before or after elections was not given to any of the missions as “this is not for a government to decide or impose the request.”
Asked if the observers will be staying at the Marriott Hotel which is scheduled to be open before election’s day, Luncheon said: “any relationships between the Marriott Hotel and the observer missions is practically of a commercial nature…the teams will need to be accommodated and the hotels that are in existence are obviously places where the teams, observer missions could be likely to be accommodated.”
