Director General of the Ministry of the Presidency, Joseph Harmon yesterday met with representatives of the Carter Center and said he is confident of free and fair general elections and expressed the hope that results will be declared in a timely manner.
A release from the Ministry of the Presidency said that the team from the Center was headed by Carlos Valenzuela, Field Office Director, International Election Observation Mission and included Anne Marlborough, Legal Analyst and Nicholas Jahr, Deputy Field Office Director. The Atlanta, Georgia, US-based Center has had a long association with electoral reforms and elections observation here.
Harmon told the team that the “Government has done all that is humanly possible over the past year to have the Elections Commission adequately equipped and provided with all the necessary resources, without any interference from Government to ensure that free, fair and credible elections are held.” He said that while some persons seek to cast aspersions on the work of the Commission, the Government is confident that it can and “will deliver a credible process” to the people of Guyana.
“We have depended on GECOM to regulate themselves without giving any directions and we have provided all the resources that they need to carry out their work. We are most confident that the Commission can deliver free, fair and credible elections,” he said.
Harmon further said that it is the Government’s hope that the elections results can be declared in a timely and efficient manner according to the requirements of the law, so that the nation’s business can continue as soon as possible after the elections.
On the question of possible post-elections violence, the Director General said Government is hopeful that this will not take place since there is no place for such in the country Guyana is becoming.
“There is too much going for Guyana right now, too much positive developments for us to return to that place. Any post elections violence will take us back decades and we don’t want that. We do not subscribe to it. We have too much to lose as a country if we go back to that abyss,” he said.
It is unclear in what context the matter of possible post-elections violence was raised in the discourse. The release said that Valenzuela informed Harmon that the team is making its rounds and has met with the Guyana Elections Commission, the Ethnic Relations Commission, and the Government and will soon be meeting with the political parties once its leadership arrives in the country, to gauge their views on the elections preparations, electoral process and challenges and issues, if any, that they may have.
Valenzuela added that the team is not here to find faults in the Commission or to criticise anyone but rather, the aim is to ensure confidence building in the citizenry and to ensure they are confident in the results at the end of the process.
