Georgetown: There is no imposition by the United States in the electoral process of Guyana and the country is happy with the polling but concerned with developments during the tabulation process after March 2, 2020.
This is according to Director of Caribbean Affairs of the Western Hemisphere, Katherine Dueholm who was at the time responding to questions on a webinar on Wednesday from the Guyana International Inclusive Alliance (GIIA) who called for the US to make its policy clear on Guyana’s electoral process.
The US Director noted that the State Department has received very good initial reports of the process from its Ambassador to Guyana Sarah Ann Lynch, while insisting that the recount must be completed in a credible and transparent manner.
“We had lined up a robust program for the next Government and had a high level teamed lined up to come to Guyana for the swearing-in of the Government. We are prepared to embrace legitimate results and remain committed to embracing credible electoral process,” she added.
Dueholm added that the U.S is familiar with the developments on the ground, noting that she is aware of the bias of statements and persons making those statements. To this end, she was confident that truth can be distinguished.
She said it was clear that the tabulation process of the March 2 votes did not follow the laws of Guyana.
“It is very clear, it is not a matter of speculation, it is not a matter of looking at partisan statements; it is using Guyana’s developed standards and witnessing the departure from that and that is when we became concerned and believe we must speak out and that is what we have done,” she added.
Underscoring that the US State Department will only recognise the next Government in Guyana as legitimate if it is declared from a credible and transparent electoral process, Dueholm said the U.S has no preference in the outcome of Guyana’s elections except that it represents the will of the Guyanese people.
“We are pro-democracy and sometimes people like how that works out and sometimes they don’t…and that illustrates why some persons feel like the decisions we have taken maybe not in keeping with what they would hope to see but it is in keeping with supporting democracy,” Dueholm said.
Further, Dueholm noted that the State Department has expended much resources to promote elections in a free, fair and transparent manner and in Guyana this was done through a US$500,000 investment to hire the International Republican Institute (IRI) to give support to the electoral process.
She said more funds were invested after the elections to help with continued youth engagement in democracy as the U.S has a genuine interest in working with whatever Government comes out of the process.
The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) is currently conducting a recount of votes cast in the March elections following objections of a fraudulent tabulations and declarations for the country’s largest voting bloc in Region Four.
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