The Permanent Council of the Organization of Ameri-can States (OAS) will meet again to discuss and possibly pass a resolution on the electoral situation in Guyana; once a final ruling in the current judicial matter is delivered.
This is according to Sir Ronald Sanders, the Antigua and Barbuda ambassador to the OAS, who explained in an invited comment to Stabroek News that the organization has not left the situation in abeyance.
“It is not a closed meeting…the Council can return to the matter…We did not hold a meeting before [last Tuesday] because the Caribbean Court of Justice was in session and then another matter was in the High Court. We did not wish to comment on a matter which was sub judice. We waited until the ruling to hold a meeting but the Secretary General had issued statements,” he reminded.
The special meeting of the council was convened at the request of Secretary General Luis Almagro to draw the attention of the 34 member states to the ongoing issue.
Almagro during the meeting appealed to the incumbent APNU+AFC to desist from further use of the court system to delay a declaration of the results of the March 2 polls. He also asked that electoral officials who were obstructing a declaration to desist from this.
“I would request that the Court not be resorted to anymore…Accept the recount and allow a transition of government in keeping with the will of the people,” he said.
Sanders who was among 10 representatives to address the Council also called for a declaration based on the recount results.
“Democracy delayed is democracy denied,” he stressed, adding that the Inter-American Democratic Charter enshrines the right of the people to democracy and the responsibility of governments to promote and defend it.
The Guyana-born Sanders noted that the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has not been able to declare a result because supporters of APNU+AFC are encouraged to take the matter to the Court again and again.
“Were this not so GECOM could’ve made a declaration a long time ago,” he said.
The Court of Appeal is currently deliberating on the third such case in which the appellant Misenga Jones is asking that the recount be discarded as unconstitutional and GECOM be compelled to make a declaration using results from Region Four which have been discredited.
Last Tuesday, Sanders said he expected the case like its predecessors to make it all the way to the CCJ. He posited that this might mean it would not be resolved until September 1.
The third session of the CCJ ends on July 31 after which the Court goes into recess. A press statement by the court has however indicated that it will remain available for emergency cases.
Prolonged delay
Asked yesterday if he has ever seen the OAS deal with a similar case, Sanders said he has not.
He explained that this is the first time the OAS has been confronted not just with such a prolonged delay in an electoral declaration but also with such frequent returns to the Courts.
“The OAS supports recourse to judicial remedies but this seems to be an abuse of process,” the diplomat lamented.
He further stressed that the silence of some members of the Council on the matter should not be taken as dissent.
“The fact that only certain representatives spoke doesn’t mean others felt differently. It is significant that no country said anything different from the position expressed by the Secretary General. The time had passed and the point had been made,” Sanders said.
Asked if his country or any other felt a need to respond to a letter sent to the Council by de facto Minister of Foreign Af-fairs, Dr Karen Cummings, Sanders said that was not necessary.
“It is not for us to comment on the Minister’s letter. The Minister made her presentation and we took account of the information presented. We also took account of the other information available such as the report from the OAS observer mission which was in country. The intelligence we got from (persons) resident in Guyana was also accounted for,” he noted.
In a letter dated July 19, Cummings told the Coun-cil that Guyana’s elections were still ongoing.
The letter, the contents of which were repeated before the Council at the special meeting, was notable for its misrepresentation of the CCJ’s ruling in the case of Eslyn David vs GECOM and others.
Cummings boldly stated to the international community that “the CCJ…invalidated the recount process on the grounds that the Recount Order ought not to contradict the constitution of Guyana.”
“It ruled also that the Chair of the Elections Commission must therefore act in accordance with the Constitution of Guyana and declare the results based on the report presented by the Chief Election Officer.”
The Court did not make these rulings. The CCJ found that the recount order could not alter the Constitution but did not declare that the Order illegal.
In fact one day before the meeting of the Council, Chief Justice Roxane George argued in her most recent ruling that such a contention was “hopelessly flawed.”
“The CCJ judgment lends to the ineluctable conclusion that the recount votes are ex facie valid. Hence the view expressed that any irregularities would have to be addressed via an election petition,” the judge noted.
Further CCJ President, Justice Adrian Saunders in delivering the unanimous judgment had said that the CCJ could not grant consequential orders, but specifically ordered that the Court of Appeal’s decision be set aside, while also invalidating the June 23rd report issued by Chief Election Officer Keith Lowenfield discarding more than 115,000 votes.
