British High Commissioner to Guyana, Greg Quinn yesterday said that the five-month wait for a final declaration from Guyana’s March 2 elections and the blatant attempt to fix the results were both firsts for him in his 25-year career as a diplomat.
“I have been around in this business for 25 years and I have never seen a post-elections process like I have seen here in those 25 years, anywhere,” Quinn told Stabroek News in an exclusive interview yesterday as he continued his preparation to return home after serving five-plus years as High Commissioner here.
Quinn observed that there are fundamental issues that have emerged, including the need for constitutional and electoral reforms, for which he said Guyana’s citizenry has to hold the Irfaan Ali government and all its leaders accountable to ensure that there is no recurrence in 2025. “I like to think more about having the reform process launched now, to ensure that come 2025 you don’t end up in the same situation as you did this time,” he added, while saying that a reconciliation process also needs to be undertaken in the period ahead of the next polls.
He said that having the needed reforms in the timeframe set out has to be something that all stakeholders want and they must not only hold their leaders to their words, but they should lead the discussions and set out objectives and outcomes.
Quinn believes that leaders will be there as facilitators to guide the process for what their constituencies want and what would be in their best interests, while at the same time understanding that it will be a process of compromise for all sides.
“I think any reform process, electoral, governance and broader reforms …the important thing is you have all feeding into what should be a bottom up process. All those people won’t get what they want but this can’t be a process from the top down,” he said as he explained that pressure for change must come from the opposition, civil society, the media and importantly the populace.
‘Definitely wrong’
Reflecting on the elections here, he said that when he watched the District 4 results being read from a spreadsheet by Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo, he thought, “This is definitely wrong and just not credible.”
He reasoned that it was why he and other foreign envoys and observers were vocal about what they saw. “You know, people had questioned on what basis myself and colleagues had taken the position we did. It is because we saw things, with our own eyes, which were clearly not credible and clearly not right. And we left. We had left the Ashmins building on one particular occasion, because of the process being conducted, despite the [order] that had been given by the acting Chief Justice,” he said.
“Everybody saw that. The CARICOM people were there, the OAS were there, the Commonwealth people were there, the Carter Center were there… all of the international community saw this stuff. So whenever we look back, and whenever people talk, it wasn’t just us who took this position and who said that there needed to be a credible result based on the recount. It was what over… 120 different countries (said),” he added.
The national recount, which showed a victory for the PPP/C, also verified the manipulation of the results in the figures presented by Mingo on both March 5th and later March 13th.
Adding to the envoy’s disbelief on March 5th was then Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr Karen Cummings infamously warned observers about their roles and the possible withdrawal of their accreditations. He said that he knew at that moment he had to say something and was the first to object to her assertions in the GECOM District Four office.
Appropriateness
Late former Barbadian Prime Minister Owen Arthur, who led the Commonwealth observer delegation, came in for high praise for standing up during that meeting and letting it be known that he would not be subjected to directions from a politico on an independent elections matter. Arthur and Cummings had clashed during the meeting when he told her that he was willing to give up the accreditation altogether if that was her attitude.
“For me, in an electoral office of the Returning Officer, [the question is] was it appropriate for a Minister of Foreign Affairs to be having a meeting like that with us? I think that was the question around appropriateness. She was there very clearly as minister of government. You have to separate the government from any potential altercation or interference in an independent electoral process. It is perfectly fine for politicians to be there as elections representatives but this brought us into somewhere where this wasn’t a party representative, it was a government representative. I still don’t think she should have,” Quinn said.
“Owen Arthur said it more eloquently. Everything that Owen said I agreed with 100%. One of the sad things about this whole process is that Owen didn’t see what he fought so hard for, both as Head of (the) Commonwealth (observer mission) and as a previous Bajan Prime Minister and advocate of all those treaties of the CARICOM agreement,” he added.
Arthur passed on July 27.
GECOM’s Chairperson Justice Claudette Singh also came in for high praise from Quinn, who said that she exhibited patience and tolerance and saw through a process where democracy prevailed.
“GECOM’s chair was understandably very careful to ensure that everything was done properly and that there was no ground for anyone to criticise how she had done things. That, I think, was perfectly fair and perfectly legitimate. I don’t think anybody can criticise her for not giving everybody a chance and allow the legal process to play out. Ultimately, she got to a position where she knew what had to be done and that was make the declaration on the basis of the recount and that was what all of the court cases had ultimately come down [to],” he said.
“When it got to a situation where it was clear there was nowhere else to go, and it was made clear that the criticisms raised by the government were more appropriate for an elections petition, she declared as soon as she could, and she had a lot of nasty commentary and threats against her as like Prime Minister [Mia] Mottley did.”
Like United States Ambassador Sarah Ann-Lynch, Quinn condemned the attacks on Singh and Mottley.
“It is worthy of condemnation of the highest order but at the end of the day she did things properly—she did the declaration properly—and a good job under unusually trying circumstances,” he said.
Quinn also said that announced action by the United Kingdom against the attempts to undermine the democratic process has not been nixed but his government still has to decide on proceeding.
Saying it was disappointed at ongoing attempts to frustrate the will of the people here, the UK had announced last month that it had started the process to act against those responsible in the event of an illegal swearing in of a government here.
“I can’t go into detail beyond the fact that we had started a process and that is really as much as I am able to say at the minute. The process hasn’t stopped. There is still a discussion to be had about what happened and whether it would still be appropriate to take action against certain individuals,” the British envoy stated.
Potential
Meanwhile, as he leaves Guyana, having witnessed two elections, Quinn urged Guyanese to work together to ensure that the country is not spoken about solely as it relates to its unfulfilled potential. “If there is one phrase repeated ad nauseam it is the potential that Guyana has but everybody needs to work together, and everybody needs to think about the 750,000 or 800,000 people that live here, to see the benefit of that potential. I don’t think anybody wants to be in 2025 the place we have been in 2020 post-elections. This is why the constitutional reform, peace and reconciliation pieces are so important. I don’t think anyone wants to see a repeat of those five months in 2025,” he stressed.
