Georgetown: Those involved in an attempt to steal Guyana’s 2020 elections should face targeted sanctions, according to Former Advisor to the President David Granger on Petroleum, Dr. Jan Mangal.
“It is time for severe, US sanctions on government officials and their key family/business associates is needed ASAP,” Dr. Mangal said. “How else to put immediate and strong pressure on these officials who are actively trying to steal an election and ruin Guyana?”
He continued: “This is for Guyanese to decide. We need a wide forum of Guyanese independents, [Non Governmental Organisations] NGOs, Civil Society, and respected commentators to get together to produce a document which calls for sanctions.”
He said that that collective would have to list the positions of officials who are to be sanctioned, suggesting that it start “all the way [at] the top” of Government and GECOM.
“It should call for sanctions which target travel, assets, and business interests,” he said.
Stressing the importance of severity, Dr. Mangal said “once this forum produces a document, then we can more effectively reach out to the international press to get visibility. The diaspora can also use this document to lobby their representatives in the US, Canada and UK.”
As an anti-corruption advocate, Dr. Mangal has spoken out against corruption in both the PPP and APNU+AFC.
Guyana’s chief justice last month ruled that the country’s largest electoral district must resume counting votes from a March 2 election, after earlier blocking the elections commission from declaring the winner in a vote marred by accusations of fraud.
Judge Roxane George ruled that election officials in an area known as Region Four must resume verification of votes after the opposition People’s Progressive Party (PPP) argued the results were released without verifying the votes at more than half the polling stations.
The dispute led to violent demonstrations which one protester was shot dead. The vote will decide who is in power during the early years of an oil boom set to transform the economy of the poor former British colony, which is beset by tensions between black Guyanese and Indo-Guyanese.
The PPP, supported mostly by Indo-Guyanese, said the results of Region Four were inflated to put incumbent President David Granger ahead of opposition challenger Irfaan Ali.
Diplomats and foreign observers described credible evidence of fraud in the tallying of the results.
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