Int’l observers were duped – PPP/C

But party distances self from Ramsammy’s statements

The People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) believes that international observers who came for the recently concluded elections, had been “duped” by new rigging mechanisms into believing that the elections had been free and fair. The party also distanced itself from accusations levelled by former Agriculture Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy, who earlier this week said, that international countries had helped the elections rigging to get their hands on local oil. During a press conference, yesterday, at Freedom House, former President Donald Ramotar, said that international observers had only considered traditional methods of elections rigging. He said that they failed to consider that the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) would be a part of the “sinister plot”. Ramotar also noted that all observers had given the elections “a clean bill of health”. However, he said, this evaluation was done before the verification process was performed at various voting areas throughout the country. “Many people would point out that the observers gave the elections a clean bill of health, but they did so even before the verification started on the polls, and therefore they did not have a chance or they missed the new form of rigging,” Ramotar maintained. He said that this year’s election is the first time that the credibility of the “machinery” (GECOM), is being questioned. “In the past, observers always look at the machinery as the neutral partner…and the machinery is expected to be the one that is neutral and that is why we believe that there is not a focus on the machinery itself, and that caused them [the observers] to make the mistake, in our view, of declaring that these elections were free and fair.” He added that traditional forms of rigging including the recycling of votes, the impersonation of voters and the stuffing of ballot boxes are already known. However, he said, “What is new in this elections, is the machinery itself is corrupted”. That is why we think they were duped; they were not looking where a huge amount of rigging took place and that is within the GECOM machinery itself,” Ramotar added. Six members of the People’s Progressive Party comprise GECOM. Meanwhile, Ramotar maintained that Ramsammy’s views were not those of the party. “As far as I’m aware, Leslie was writing in his personal capacity; he was not writing on behalf of the PPP Civic. That’s his personal view,” Ramotar said. However, former President Bharrat Jagdeo said that it was “interesting” that Ramsammy’s personal views were being elevated to those of the party, when similar methods were not applied to the members of the APNU+AFC coalition. “Here is Dr Leslie Ramsammy posting on Facebook his personal views and suddenly it becomes the position of the PPP and gets reported on as though it was the PPP’s position,” Jagdeo said. In a 12-paragraph post titled, “Is oil now reason for rigged elections?” Ramsammy claimed that the international observers and GECOM seemed more concerned about expediency of an early release of results, rather than ensuring the integrity of the electoral process. He further opined that there was a deliberate act to place the new government in power because international stakeholders were interested in Guyana’s oil deposits. Just recently, the American firm Exxon-Mobil made the promising discovery of hydrocarbons, which indicates the presence of oil, in a concession offshore Guyana. Though the PPP/C has distanced itself from Ramsammy’s claims, the leadership of the party maintains that the group is stronger than ever and will continue to demonstrate “strong unity” as it fights for its demands. About 30 members of the party turned out at the press conference yesterday to demonstrate this unity.