In the face of the continuing refusal by President Donald Ramotar to concede defeat, the heads of the United States, British and Canadian diplomatic missions in Guyana yesterday reiterated their confidence in the vote count from Monday’s general and regional elections.
In a joint statement, Chargé d’Affaires of the US Embassy Bryan Hunt, British High Commissioner Gregory Quinn and Canadian High Commissioner Dr. Nicole Giles said they “found nothing that would materially impact the integrity or credibility of the process” and urged any party with concerns to use the established process for making disputes known rather than resorting to the media.
Earlier, the European Union (EU) also commended the Guyana Elections Commission (Gecom) over the conduct of the polling and said that any grievance over the result must be addressed through legal channels.
The PPP/C stands isolated as the only group in the country continuing to question the validity of the general elections. Observer groups from the Carter Center, the Commonwealth, the Organisation of American States and Caricom have given it a clean bill of health.
After the release of preliminary results from Gecom showing that opposition coalition APNU+AFC won the polls with 206,817 votes to the incumbent PPP/C’s 201,457 votes, Ramotar has demanded a full manual recount, while saying the process was rigged.
Due to the PPP/C’s continued objections, the official declaration of results has been delayed although Gecom is expected to proceed with it today.
Up to yesterday, Ramotar told a news conference that statements of polls were doctored in some cases. He also called into question the integrity of the international observers and warned that they stand to lose credibility if they “give a clean bill of health” to a rigged election.
In their joint statement, the envoys said their respective missions reiterated their “strong and considered opinion that the voting and tabulation processes in the Guyanese national and regional elections were free, fair, and credible.”
“Despite investigating, in collaboration with other observer missions, repeated allegations of irregularities, we have found nothing that would
materially impact the integrity or credibility of the process,” they added.
Further, the mission heads noted that Gecom has an effective verification and dispute resolution process that is functioning well and that is under the continued scrutiny of international experts. “We encourage any political party with concerns about any preliminary results to use the established process with the Guyana Elections Commission to make those disputes known rather than resorting to the media,” they added.
The mission heads noted that Gecom is working to complete final results as early as possible under Guyanese law and called on all Guyanese to be patient during the process and for all political leaders to respect the final results. They also urged all political parties to keep their promise to respect the code of conduct for political parties.
Meanwhile, the EU in an earlier statement noted that the elections were largely peaceful, transparent and inclusive, with a high turnout and good performance of electoral authorities. As a result, it commended Gecom for an efficient and well-organised election process.
“The EU calls on all actors to respect the legal procedures and address any possible grievance through the channels established by the law,” it added.
“The EU also looks forward to strengthening our bilateral and regional cooperation and continuing close collaboration with Guyana’s Pro Tempore Chairmanship of CARIFORUM, in particular in the run up to the EU-CELAC Summit and the EU-CARIFORUM Top Level meeting of 11 of June 2015,” it further said.
