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CARICOM Calls For All Stakeholders To Ensure “Peaceful And Lawful Completion” Of Elections In Guyana

Barbados Prime Minister, Mia Mottley. Photo credit: BGIS.

CARICOM Calls For All Stakeholders To Ensure “Peaceful And Lawful Completion” Of Elections In Guyana

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, March 7, 2020 (CMC) – The 15-member Caribbean Community (CARICOM) grouping, today, called on “the electoral officials in Guyana, and the representative political parties, to work together to achieve a peaceful and lawful completion of the electoral process in Guyana, by ensuring the tabulation of the results in all regions, using the Statement of Polls in a transparent manner, in the presence of the representatives of the political parties and the electoral observers”.

Chair and Barbados Prime Minister, Mia Mottley, in a CARICOM statement, noted, “Indeed, CARICOM issued a statement, on Thursday night, and one was also issued yesterday, from the Chief of the independent CARICOM Electoral Observation team, and both statements called on GECOM to complete the electoral process.”

Mottley said, “We are very clear: every vote must be made to count, and transparently so. We have noted that all sides have been making serious allegations against each other. It is critical that good sense prevails.

“The preservation of law and order is paramount, and all parties must work, hard, to ensure that there is peace on the roads and in the communities across Guyana. There has already been one death reported overnight. That is one death too many.”

Attorneys, representing the Peoples Progressive Party-Civic (PPP-C), said they had been able to secure three injunctions from the High Court, ordering GECOM to verify the results of Region Four.

The High Court will deliver a preliminary ruling, tomorrow.

In her statement, Mottley, who is also an attorney, said, “In simple language, we ask the parties to recognise that the primary consideration must not only be who will be President but, more so, who will be alive, come next week or next month, for there cannot be a tolerance for any further loss of life.”

Mottley revealed that she has spoken to both the President and the Leader of the Opposition, and indicated that CARICOM stands ready to be able to be there to facilitate further dialogue and any actions that are necessary.

“We have done this, on many occasions in the past, including in Guyana, when elections have been highly contentious and when social order and the rule of law have been threatened across the region.

“We are family and this is what happens when there are disputes in families. We will work, together, to create the space for dialogue and resolution, once there is an acceptance, on the part of all parties, that there is a higher interest, beyond simply the result in this election,” the CARICOM statement concluded.

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