Lies, misrepresentation by Williams and Cummings did not budge OAS diplomats – Phillips

The lies and misrepresentation peddled by de facto Foreign Affairs Minister Dr Karen Cummings and Attorney General Basil Williams did not have any impact whatsoever during the meeting convened on Tuesday by the Organisation of American States (OAS) Permanent Council to discuss the political situation in Guyana.

According to Peoples Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Prime Ministerial Candidate, Brigadier Mark Phillips, Williams and Cummings “wasted their time” and “embarrassed the entire country” in trying to convince the OAS high-level body that David Granger’s APNU/AFC Coalition is abiding by democratic norms.
Phillips, during a virtual interview programme captioned ‘Government in Transition’, posited that OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro and all the other diplomats were well informed about the political impasse in Guyana, which is largely due to the APNU/AFC Coalition refusing to accept that it has lost the March 2 General and Regional Elections.
“They were unable in their lies and misrepresentation to budge the opinions formed by those diplomats,” Phillips expressed. He added: “Notwithstanding the attempts to misrepresent the issues by Cummings and Williams, when you listen to the presentations by the ambassadors and the Secretary General of the OAS, those diplomats are well informed as to the situation in Guyana; and that is what saved the day”.

According to Phillips, it was embarrassing to listen to Cummings and Williams deliberately trying to mislead the diplomats.
He noted that Cummings and Williams should have been speaking on behalf of the State, as against taking a party (APNU/AFC) position on the issues.
“What Williams and Cummings did there, they wasted their time and they made Guyana look bad,” the PM Candidate highlighted.
Phillips noted that it was very fortunate that he and fellow PPP/C Executive Member Anil Nandlall, were allowed to speak at the meeting, in order to correct the misrepresentations by Cummings and Williams.
The APNU/AFC de facto minsters have come under severe fire recently for causing Guyana further embarrassment and humiliation on the world stage by peddling untruths about the current political climate in the country.
Williams blatantly told the OAS that, “the CCJ [Caribbean Court of Justice] never made a ruling that the results of the Recount must be used by GECOM to determine the results of the elections”.
However, such an assertion is clearly inaccurate, since in its written judgement in the Eslyn David case, the CCJ said: “Unless and until an election court decides otherwise, the votes already counted by the Recount process as valid votes are incapable of being declared invalid by any person or authority.”

Similarly, Cummings told the OAS that the APNU/AFC Coalition has not interfered in the electoral process; but it is the APNU/AFC, through its supporters, that has been approaching the courts, time after time, to block the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) from making a declaration based on the Recount results.
According to Phillips, all the speakers during the meeting of the Permanent Council sent a clear message to the stakeholders in Guyana; that is: the certified recount results must be used to declare a winner of the elections, and a declaration must be made with haste.
Phillips, a former Army Head, said the APNU/AFC wants to hang on to power at all cost, “but this is not the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s; this is the 21st century.”
He suggested that the “older folks” in the PNC/APNU should step aside and allow the youths to take over, since “young professionals are more in-tune with the 21st century values, which includes democracy”.
Based on the results of the National Recount, the PPP/C has won the elections by securing 233,336 votes, but the APNU/AFC is refusing to concede defeat in spite of mounting international pressure.