Only democratic solution for Guyana is the recount results – OAS

In what can be considered its most powerful missive yet, the Organisation of American States (OAS) on Saturday made it pellucid that the only democratic solution in Guyana’s current electoral impasse is for the recount results to be respected.

The OAS – an international continental organisation of which Guyana is a member – firmly asserted that no other figures that have been unilaterally derived can be the basis of the final declaration of the country’s presidential elections.
Furthermore, the OAS – which fielded an electoral observer mission for Guyana’s March 2 polls – blasted those who are acting against the interest of democracy, saying that it is past time for the newly elected Government to assume executive office.

“Let us be very clear – 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 OAS said in its statement in response to the latest developments in Guyana.
The remarks were made in light of the decision by the Chief Elections Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield to submit his final elections report with fraudulent numbers that do not reflect the will of the people.
In fact, Lowenfield’s action is in clear defiance of the instructions which he was constitutionally bound to execute, since the Chair of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Retired Justice Claudette Singh, specifically directed him to use the certified recount results to prepare and submit the final report.
And, according to the OAS, there can be no justification for this action.
The international group stated: “As intimated in our statement of July 10, this confirms that the Chief Elections Officer is acting in bad faith and contrary to the interest of democracy in Guyana.”
In that July 10 statement, the OAS had urged GECOM to remove from the electoral process, persons whose actions display clear partisan bias.
This is not the first time that the GECOM CEO has attempted to alter the results of the elections. Prior to this incident, Lowenfield submitted an elections report which unilaterally invalidated over 115,000 votes. Before this, he would have supported, on two occasions, the fraudulent declarations made by the Returning Officer for Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) Clairmont Mingo. In fact, it is Mingo’s fraudulent figures that the CEO used to compile his latest unlawful report to the Elections Commission. In all of those cases, the votes have been altered to give a false victory to the incumbent APNU/AFC coalition which has been refusing to accept defeat and is exerting all efforts to cling on to power.
In light of this, the OAS contended that “it is past time that the current leaders of Guyana comply with their democratic responsibilities and allow the newly elected Government to take its place.”
Referencing Article 1 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, the OAS reminded that “the people of the Americas have a right to democracy and their governments have an obligation to promote and defend it.”
The OAS said in the coming days, its General Secretariat will report to the OAS Permanent Council on these and other recent developments in Guyana.
The OAS had previously stated that a credible conclusion of the 2020 elections is essential if Guyana is to remain a democracy. The organisation had also pledged to continue to support the efforts of the people of Guyana towards this end.