If there was any former president who should have had every reason to rig an election, it was Suriname’s Desi Bouterse says Sir Ronald Sanders, Ambassador of Antigua and Barbuda.
In his most recent writings, the official noted that Bouterse who was convicted and sentenced last year to 20 years imprisonment with an appeal still pending, recently competed in his country’s General Elections and lost. The Ambassador said it is important to note neither Bouterse nor his National Democratic Party attempted to gerrymander the general elections process which was declared to be free of fraud by Observer missions from the Organization of American States (OAS) and CARICOM.
In stark contrast, the Ambassador said that Guyana has seen the false tabulation of the votes cast in the March 4 elections. Further to this, Sir Sanders said that officers of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) have been proven, in a recount of all the votes that started on May 6, to have manipulated poll results in favour of the APNU+AFC party to a significant degree.
The Ambassador of Antigua and Barbuda to the Organization of American States also noted that the recount, which has been scrutinized by agents of CARICOM and observed by representatives of the OAS and local groups, is nearing the end of an elongated and painful process that has taken four weeks so far. However, as the end of the recount nears, Sir Ronald said that the recounted votes already show that APNU+AFC has clearly lost the elections. In light of this, he noted that APNU+AFC’s officials are already stating that any result announced from the recount process cannot be seen as credible.
Sir Sanders said that the basis for this alarming demand is an unsubstantiated allegation that dead or absent persons voted in the election. The envoy said, “Curiously, this ominous statement has come after the APNU-AFC leadership had earlier declared – along with all the observer missions – that the voting, at which every party had agents present, was free and fair…”
The Ambassador was keen to note that if the results of the recount process are ignored, the international community will come down hard on an illegitimate government, and the fortunes of the Guyanese people will once again be thwarted.
He said the question now arises about what will happen when, by June 16, GECOM announces the result of the recounted votes of the elections.
