Alarmed at the heightened rhetoric on the campaign trail for the May 11 general elections, US Charge d’Affaires Bryan Hunt yesterday warned that comments being made by politicians are “very dangerous for Guyana and its future” and has urged leaders to tone down.
“We’ve had too many examples globally where irresponsible rhetoric on the campaign trail has resulted in actual violence in countries after elections. We don’t want to see that in Guyana, I’m confident the Guyanese people do not want to see that in their country and I believe it is imperative upon all political leaders from all political parties to clearly speak out against any sort of provocation to clearly lay down that they see Guyana as a single, united nation and that there is no place for inter-ethnic hatred, violence or discrimination in this country,” Hunt – the top American diplomat in Guyana – told Stabroek News in an interview yesterday.
“I am very concerned by the tone that the campaign has taken in the last week to ten days. I think it is very problematic that we have leaders from both political parties who have been putting out statements that would charitably be seen as provocative, uncharitably be seen as statements that could easily incite inter-ethnic violence. I think it’s very dangerous for leaders of both political parties to be talking about violence that will ensue if the other party were to win the election, I think it is a very worrying trend when both parties are reporting that there are villages, neighbourhoods where their campaign workers have received threats. I think it’s very problematic when we receive reports from both parties that their campaign literature has been torn down or vandalized,” Hunt said.
“These sorts of trends are not things that anyone wants to see in the run-up to an election. They, to me, are very worrying signs and I think it requires strong leadership from both of the parties to put an end to this sort of rhetoric, these sorts of behaviours, this sort of provocation that seems to be going on,” he declared.
According to the US diplomat, the political rhetoric that is being tossed around is not just concerning to a free and fair process “but frankly very dangerous for Guyana and its future.”
With a seemingly close race for the upcoming May 11 general elections, there has been in increase in tension and some politicians particularly former President Bharrat Jagdeo have faced accusations of scaremongering and race baiting. At several of the ruling PPP/C major rallies, Jagdeo has insisted that there is something to fear from the opposition and made a number of comments seen as divisive.
The former president has faced increasing criticism of his comments while campaigning from local stakeholders including the Media Monitoring Unit of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) which said that controversial remarks by him at Port Mourant on March 8 were racially divisive. He has since been slapped with a private criminal charge over this. On Tuesday, the electoral observation mission of the Organisation of American States (OAS) also expressed concern about the increasingly provocative language in the elections campaign and called on all parties to sign and implement the political parties’ code of conduct.
Not singling out
Yesterday, Hunt emphasised that he was not singling out any individual or either political party but “I think collectively, the political leadership of Guyana needs to move swiftly to make it clear that these elections should be, must be peaceful, that the results of the elections should be, must be respected and that the resort to violence is not an acceptable solution.” He said that the best thing that the international community can do is to speak out and to remind political leaders here of the “dangerous path that they head down if they choose to incite that sort of inter-ethnic rivalry, hatred discourse.”
Noting that the elections is just days away, the US diplomat said that there is still plenty of time for political leaders to rein in the rhetoric that has been unleashed. “I would hope that they would quickly adopt the political party code of conduct that has been proposed by the Guyana Elections Commission and then live up to all of the articles that are laid out in that political code of conduct and even in advance of that, I would call on them to make it clear to all of their supporters that rhetoric that suggests violence, threatens violence, claims the other side is going to engage in violence so we have to be ready for it, has no place in an election campaign,” he asserted.
He said that the campaign period will very much be covered in all of the reports that come out from the international observers and will figure prominently in the US’ assessment of the campaign period.
“It is too early to make any judgments about whether the elections will ultimately be free and fair and credible but it is safe to say that we do take into account the entire context in which the elections are conducted when we make those sorts of judgements, we can’t look at voting day in isolation, we have to look at everything that took place leading up to voting day, if there is fearmongering, if there is intimidation, if there are areas of the country where one or more parties were unable to campaign fairly, that does have an impact ultimately upon how the vote comes out,” he said.
Debate
Meantime, the Ameri-can diplomat also called for a debate between the two presidential candidates and said that it is critical. “The Guyanese people deserve to hear what the candidates think about crucial issues facing this country. We need a debate in Guyana between the two presidential candidates, it’s something that in most countries is a regular feature of the elections that the heads of the ticket appear together to debate the issues that the people of the nation believe are important and I think it is of paramount importance given that we want to move Guyana from a country that is focused on these inter-ethnic relations issues to one that is focused on future policy issues that we see the two candidates debate,” he told Stabroek News.
He noted that the Private Sector Commission has proposed a debate between the two presidential candidates and said that he hopes that both parties agree to participate in what is a critical debate for the Guyanese people. It is easy for both sides to come up with reasons for their candidates not to appear but in the best interest of the country, in the interest of showing leadership, the two sides need to put that behind them, take up the PSC offer and have the two presidential candidates debate about the serious issues that this country will confront over the next five years and let Guyanese hear what their approaches are going to be, he said.
