After deeming the Caribbean Community as the most “legitimate interlocutor” in Guyana’s electoral process, the caretaker A Partnership for National Unit/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Government has now launched an attack on the current Head of CARICOM, Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley, after she spoke out on the recent move by Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield to invalidate over 115,000 votes.
Caricom Chair and Barbados’ Prime Minister, Mia Mottley
The Caricom Head, as well as heads of the ABCE diplomatic missions in Guyana – United States, Britain, Canada and the European Union (EU) – on Wednesday stated that the will of the Guyanese people expressed at the March 2 polls must be respected, and that the results from the National Recount, which were certified, must form the basis for the declaration of the election results.
Deputy Supervisor of Elections in St Vincent and the Grenadines, Sylvester King; Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Cynthia Barrow-Giles; and Commissioner of the Antigua and Barbuda Electoral Commission, John Jarvis
The Caricom Chair had questioned, “On what grounds, and by what form of executive fiat, does the Chief Election Officer determine that he should invalidate one vote, far less 115,000 votes?”
while the Western envoys stressed that “every vote cast by every voter” must be reflected in the declaration of the final elections results.
However, both PM Mottley and the ABCE diplomatic community came under attack by the David Granger-led Coalition.
“We call on Prime Minister Mottley and the named diplomats to refrain from enabling those who are seeking to impose fraudulent elections results on the people of Guyana and subvert the true will of the electorate,” the Coalition said in a statement late on Wednesday.
The APNU/AFC went on to say, “We believe that Prime Minister Mottley’s statement is both ill-informed and ill-advised… We view the Hon. Prime Minister’s statement as not only untimely, but in fact as interference in a matter on which the Constitution of Guyana is clear.”
This attack on PM Mottley comes almost five months after the Caricom Chair was conferred with Guyana’s second highest national award – Order of Roraima – by President Granger during a visit in February. During that ceremony, the caretaker Head of State had lauded the Barbadian PM for pushing regional integration.
“She combines her almost thirty years of political activism with her personal enthusiasm and her country’s legendary leadership in regional integration. We applaud Prime Minister Mottley’s leadership, stewardship, and partnership with Caribbean states. We commend her on her assumption of the office of Chairman of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community, for her long-established commitment to Caribbean integration,” Granger had said at the investiture on February 3.
PM Mia Mottley has been playing an integral role in Guyana’s prolonged electoral process, leading a high-level delegation of CARICOM Heads of State back in March to discuss the impasse.
At that time, President Granger and Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo had agreed to a National Recount under the auspices of the CARICOM Chair, who then facilitated a special team of observers to monitor the exercise. But this activity never got underway after APNU/AFC supporter Ulita Moore challenged the recount in the court, forcing the team to depart.
PM Mottley had said at the time, “It is clear that there are forces that do not want to see the votes recounted for whatever reason.”
Subsequently, Caricom agreed to field another team upon the invitation of the Guyana Elections Commission to scrutinise the National Recount which ran from May 6 to June 8, 2020.
In its report to GECOM last week, the Caricom team said “Nothing we witnessed warrants a challenge to the inescapable conclusion that the recount results are acceptable and should constitute the basis of the declaration of results of the March 2, 2020 elections.”
Despite this, however, and the fact that President Granger as well as several senior officials of his party had deemed the regional team as the most “legitimate interlocutor” in the recount process, Several senior members of the APNU/AFC as well as their supporters had also attacked the team, which comprised Deputy Supervisor of Elections of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Sylvester King; Commissioner of the Antigua and Barbuda Electoral Commission, John Jarvis; and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Cynthia Barrow-Giles.
