Jose Cardenas, a political consultant based in Washington, DC, yesterday said that Guyana’s current political situation is “troublesome” and it paves the way for sanctions to be imposed and restrictions can also be placed on the country’s oil funds if the will of the people is not respected.
Cardenas, who has over 30 years of experience in the Washington political process and inter-American relations, made this disclosure during a virtual meeting held with the media yesterday.
“The controversies and the evolution of the political process in Guyana is an election that took place in March 2nd and here we are June 27th and there is still not a declared winner. Well that’s troublesome. It generates an amount of concern for the health of Guyana’s democracy and also for the Guyanese people…a hundred and something days later and yet the Guyanese people do not know who is going to be leading their next government,” Cardenas said.
Cardenas, a former USAID Acting Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean and who also served on the National Security Council under President George W. Bush, is affiliated with The Cormac Group, which has been hired by the Queens-based International Center for Democracy to engage US officials on the electoral crisis.
He noted that this situation is happening at an “extraordinary” period in Guyana’s history as the country is about to head into a new era with its recent oil discoveries.
“What Washington wants, what the United States wants is frankly what I suspect what most of the Guyanese people want, they want to move on and they want certainty. They want political certainty and they want to begin this process of getting more information and understanding more how their government is intending to manage this newfound wealth that is going to be experienced by Guyana in the next few years,” Cardenas explained.
According to Cardenas, sanctions can be imposed on any individual who tried to obstruct a successful completion of the electoral process and “undemocratically” swear in a president.
The sanctions, he added, could include the revocation of individual US visas and the freezing of Guyana’s oil funds, which is currently at the United States Federal Reserve.
“The use of sanctions frankly are a disincentive for people who have malign interests and I think claiming that an individual, for example, Georgetown involved in the elections who may have bad intentions can do so with impunity is dangerous and it’s reckless. So anybody in Georgetown who is thinking of either diverting the outcome of the election, the will of the Guyanese people as has been manifested in not only the March 2 election but in the recount which has been pretty clear from all press reports and it seems to be most of the international organisations, including CARICOM, have basically concluded that the recount shows that the opposition won the elections, Washington absolutely has measures it can impose on that individual that relates to their ability to, for example, have a bank account in the United States or otherwise do banking in their private lives that touch the US economic system. That person also can lose their ability to travel to the United States. Their visa could be revoked,” Cardenas said.
Threaten
He added that it is “erroneous” for others to think that the US has no authority to impose sanctions.
“I can’t help but think that there must be many Guyanese who are, maybe a little bit taken aback at the attention that the election in Guyana has attracted in Washington. Well here is a variety of reasons why that is so. Number one, is that Washington policymakers and those who follow events in the regions in Washington [have] become quite sensitised to the, lets calls it, the health of democracy in the western hemisphere…So there is a renewed attention in Washington to democratic processes in the hemisphere and that naturally is why you may see this unprecedented, at least from Washington’s perspective as far as United States is concerned, attention towards Guyana,” he said.
If further efforts are made to ruin the will of the people in Guyana, Cardenas said that the US will have no other option but to impose sanctions which will threaten the oil inheritance the country now possesses.
“If it’s decided to be a larger conspiracy and I’m just speculating here but it’s important to understand what the options are in the United States for all concerned is that if there is determined to be a government-wide conspiracy to thwart the will of the Guyanese people, absolutely the US can put in place sectoral sanctions which would, of course, threaten the oil patrimony that Guyana now possesses,” Cardenas emphasised.
Before any sanctions are imposed, Cardenas said, discussions will be held with the international organisations. “That is why the international observers carries so much importance because they are the ones that give you that impartial objective, a statement analysis of the mechanics of what happened,” he said.
“…Nobody wants to go in that direction but I am just stating an objective fact that should the process in Guyana break down and you have an unwillingness of one of the parties in the election to concede and this uncertainty continues, there is going to be discussions in Washington and in concert with the [Organization of American States] and no doubt, in concert, discussions and consultations with CARICOM. That does happen because I’ve been on the inside. There will be consultations with the OAS, there will be consultations with the ABCE countries about how best the international community can help bring the situation to a successful end,” Cardenas further explained.
If the situation arrives at this stage, Cardenas said that the first aspect of the discussions will be the leverage available. He highlighted that ExxonMobil, which is the operator for the Stabroek Block, Guyana’s largest oil block, is US-based.
The freezing of the oil funds, he said, is a “worst-case scenario” and will only be looked at based on the outcome of the elections.
“There is a possibility that the current government could attempt to sever its relationship with ExxonMobil and bring in another company…that works around the US financial system…it’s not easy, it is expensive. So you will have to find a partner who is willing to bear the excessive cost of doing business outside the US economic banking financial system,” Cardenas said.
If the situation continues without end, he said, “then you have to understand…all options are on the table.”
Cardenas made reference to the situation in neighbouring Venezuela. “Look what has happened to the oil exports of Venezuela…nobody wants to touch them. The exports of Venezuelan oil have become radioactive and nobody is going to buy Venezuelan oil, no one is going to ship it. I am sure ExxonMobil is watching this with extreme concern about what the political impasse can have on their development in partnership with the Guyanese government of the oil patrimony of Guyana,” he further said.
In the interest of Guyanese, Cardenas is calling on President David Granger to concede. “…I hope in the end that President Granger does what’s good for his country…to understand that the people have spoken…the best thing for Guyanese people is for President Granger to concede and begin the process of competing fairly in the next election,” Cardenas said.
