Jason Carter to lead Carter Center election mission in Guyana

The Carter Center’s election observers have arrived in Guyana and are undergoing training in advance of their observation of election day, tabulation, and the post-election environment.
In a release on Thursday, the Carter Center said that Jason Carter, chairperson of The Carter Center Board of Trustees and grandson of the late US President Jimmy Carter, will lead the Carter Center’s mission. He will meet with key stakeholders, including political party candidates, civil society organisations, Government officials, and other international election observer missions, before observing polling, counting, and tabulation. Carter returns to Guyana after having co-led the Center’s 2020 election observation mission in the country.
“This is an important moment for Guyana’s democracy,” said Country Director Jason Calder. “The Carter Center encourages every eligible voter to make their voice heard and is hopeful that the electoral process will be a fully transparent one that reflects the will of the people.”
The Center’s core team of electoral experts arrived in late June and issued a preliminary statement summarising key observations in the pre-election period on August 19.After the election, it will issue reports that offer an independent and impartial assessment of the electoral process.
The Carter Center is here at the invitation of the Government of Guyana. It has a longstanding commitment to Guyana and has worked in the country since 1991 to strengthen democracy, support civil society, encourage sustainable development, and reinforce the rule of law. The Carter Center is a recognised leader in the international election observation community and has conducted more than 125 election observation missions globally, including in Guyana in 1992, 2001, 2006, 2015, and 2020.
In 2020, during the election’s results recount, the Carter Center was barred from returning to Guyana by A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) to observe the recount exercise. Despite pressure from local and international stakeholders to allow The Carter Center team to return, the David Granger Administration was resolute in its position to block the international group from observing the recount, citing the COVID-19 restrictions.
In the same vein, however, the coalition Administration was allowing other personnel to fly to Guyana. In fact, they granted the other observer team permission to land in the country.
The certified results from the recount exercise supervised by GECOM and a high-level team from CARICOM eventually showed that the PPP/C in 2020 won with 233,336 votes, while the coalition garnered 217,920.
As it stands, nine individuals are currently before the court in connection with the alleged attempt to rig the March 2020 general and regional elections.
The accused include Clairmont Mingo, former Chief Elections Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield, and his former Deputy Roxanne Myers. Also charged are former PNC/R Chairperson Volda Lawrence, PNC/R activist Carol Smith-Joseph, and former GECOM employees Sheffern February, Enrique Livan, Michelle Miller, and Denise Babb-Cummings.
The election report of former CEO Lowenfield had claimed that the APNU/AFC coalition garnered 171,825 votes, while the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) gained 166,343 votes. How he arrived at those figures is still unknown.