OAS to meet today to discuss APNU/AFC-created electoral crisis

The Permanent Council of the Organisation of American States (OAS) will meet today to discuss the ongoing APNU/AFC-created political crisis in Guyana with the coalition refusing to make way for a smooth transition of power even though a National Recount has confirmed that it has been defeated at the March 2 polls.

This meeting comes against the backdrop of the APNU/AFC supporter, Misenga Jones filing an appeal following the ruling of Chief Justice Roxane George on Monday, that Order 60 (the Recount Order), which facilitated the recount of votes from the March 2 polls, was properly constructed. This appeal will mean that the Guyana Elections Commission will not be able to go ahead with a declaration. Guyanese will have to endure a further protraction even after four months of impasse.
Last Friday, the OAS confirmed that the Permanent Council will hold the virtual special meeting at the request of the Secretary General, Luis Almagro.
The Permanent Council is one of two main political bodies of the OAS, the other being the General Assembly. The Permanent Council keeps vigilance over the maintenance of friendly relations among the member states and, for that purpose, effectively assists them in the peaceful settlement of their disputes.
In one of his columns for the Caribbean Media Service, Sir Ronald Sanders, Senior Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London, and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the United States and the OAS, has warned that Guyana is in grave danger of being ostracised in the regional, hemispheric and global communities.
He added that if an undemocratic Government is established “Guyana could face suspension from the Commonwealth and from the OAS – two of the most important organisations to which it belongs, for breaches of the Commonwealth 1991 Harare Declaration on the protection and promotion of the fundamental political values of the Commonwealth; and the Inter-American Democratic Charter that guides the OAS.”
According to Saunders, once the machinery of the Commonwealth and the OAS is invoked – as it certainly will be – suspension of Guyana from the Councils of both organisations will assuredly follow. “The European Union will also take separate action that will be directed at suspending normal terms of trade, aid, and investment relations. The latter will have an immediate effect that will be immediately apparent in Guyana.”

Notably, both the Commonwealth and the OAS Observer missions to Guyana were led by two former Caribbean Prime Ministers, Owen Arthur of Barbados and Bruce Golding of Jamaica.
The National Recount has shown that the Dr Irfaan Ali-led PPP/C has won the elections with 233,336 votes. But caretaker President David Granger and a few of his top aides, with the help of elements within the electoral machinery, are refusing to give up power.
The OAS has already made it clear that “the only democratic solution for Guyana at this time is respect for the results of the National Recount. No other figures – neither those prepared prior to the recount, nor those recently invalidated by the Caribbean Court of Justice, nor any others that may be unilaterally devised by the Chief Elections Officer – can have any place in the final determination of results. A new electoral process is also an unacceptable solution.”
The last OAS Permanent Council meeting was a virtual one held on June 26, 2020, during which they discussed Venezuela and the “recent illegitimate supreme court rulings in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.”
The OAS has only ever suspended two members – Cuba in 1962 and Honduras in 2009 – although Honduras was subsequently reinstated. However, in 2018 the OAS had adopted a resolution against Venezuela which sought to admonish the embattled Spanish speaking country for human rights violations. There had even been calls for Venezuela to be suspended from the Organisation.