Foreign powers are speaking out for democracy to prevail – PPP/C PM Candidate

As pressure continues to mount from the international and regional community for the March 2 elections results to be based on the certified figures emanating from the National Recount, Brigadier (ret’d) Mark Phillips said the foreign powers have been outspoken over Guyana’s situation due to their respect for democracy and people’s rights.

Phillips was the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Prime Ministerial Candidate at the March 2020 polls, the results of which are yet to be declared – some four months after. A National Recount conducted under the scrutiny of a special Caribbean Community (Caricom) team shows the PPP/C in a landslide victory with some 15,416 more votes than its main political rival, the caretaker APNU/AFC coalition, which has since challenged the results.

However, the international community – including the Kingdom of Norway, the Heads of the ABCE (United States, British, Canadian and European Union) Diplomatic Missions, a group of powerful US Senators and several bodies such as The Commonwealth, Organisation of American States (OAS), Nelson Mandela’s The Elders’ Group, and Caricom among others – have been calling for the David Granger-led APNU/AFC to concede defeat and demit office.
But there has been some pushback by the coalition and its supporters, who have attacked many of the regional leaders, despite Caricom being deemed as the most “legitimate interlocutors” in the Guyana situation, and even the ABCE diplomats, accusing them of interfering in Guyana’s affairs.
According to Phillips, these foreign powers are merely speaking out in support for democracy to prevail in Guyana.
“The whole world is not against Guyana; the whole world is against the APNU/AFC attempts to hold onto office after losing a popular election. The people voted for the PPP/C and the PPP/C must be allowed to form the next Government of Guyana. That is simply what all these individuals, all these international and regional organisations are saying to Guyana. They’re saying, we are a group of democratic nations, we pride ourselves with upholding the rule of law, respecting human rights and ensuring the will of the people prevail at all times in our region, in our hemisphere and we will not sit by idly and allow that process to be derailed in Guyana,” the PM Candidate posted during an interview broadcast on Antiguan radio NICE FM 104.3 Online.
According to Phillips, this is not the 1970s and 80s where the entire world turned a blind eye to what was happening in Guyana.
“You hear terms like “non-interference”, those were applicable in the 1970s – the important term today is the responsibility to protect [democracy] and the international community is telling us that you’re part of the Civil Society Charter of Caricom, and similar Charters in the OAS and the Commonwealth of Nations and we have to respect the will of the people in Guyana, we have to respect the rule of law in Guyana, we have to respect human rights and democracy will prevail in Guyana,” he stated.
The PPP/C PM Candidate went on to point out that it is only the caretaker coalition that is pushing back against these bodies. He noted that none of the other new political parties have done so and this clearly shows that the APNU/AFC is bent on holding on to office.
Only last week, the coalition and its supporters launched a barrage of attacks on the current Caricom Chair, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley and the ABCE envoys, after they criticised the recent move by Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield to invalidate over 115,000 votes.
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?”
The Western envoys stressed that “every vote cast by every voter” must be reflected in the declaration of the final elections results.
In response, PM Mottley on Friday said briefly at a press conference in Bridgetown, “The truth hurts. But what we must never do in Caricom is avoid the truth and avoid our principles.”
Recently, the coalition had also attacked Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves. Former Prime Ministers of Jamaica and Barbados Bruce Golding and Owen Arthur were also not spared.
Golding had led the OAS Elections Observer Mission while Arthur had led the Commonwealth Observer Mission to monitor the March 2 elections and witnessed the unprecedented events that followed.
In fact, Golding told the OAS Permanent Council, “I have never seen a more transparent effort to alter the results of an election.”