The vote in the OAS that has come back to haunt Guyana

Mar 16, 2020 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

A country must have a Head of State. Venezuela has two persons claiming to be its Head of State. The first is the incumbent President, Nichols Maduro; and the second is Juan Guaido, the former President of the country’s National Assembly and an opposition leader.
Guyana last year put itself in a position where it had to pronounce on who it would recognize as the President of Venezuela. On the 10th January 2019, Guyana voted along with the 18 other countries in support of a Resolution to “not recognize the legitimacy Nicolas Maduro’s new term.”
The Resolution called on members of the Organization of American States to pursue political, economic and financial measures that they consider appropriate “to contribute to the prompt restoration of the democratic order of Venezuela.”
Through its Permanent Secretary, Charlene Phoenix, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is rejecting a Stabroek News’s editorial contention that Guyana recognizes the Juan Guaido as the President of Venezuela. The Ministry said that non-recognition of one person does not mean recognition of the other, meaning that its rejection of Maduro does not amount to a recognition of Guaido.
So just who does Guyana recognize as the President of Venezuela? Guyana’s vote in the OAS Permanent Council was for non-recognition of the new term of Nicholas Maduro.. And since it does not recognize Maduro, it must state just who is recognizes as the President of Venezuela.
The answer to that question is of extreme relevance to what is happening at present in Guyana. The elections in Guyana have been rigged. This has been done in front of international observer missions, including one from the Organization of American States.
The OAS mission pulled out of the process after it became clear that there was no transparency in the vote tabulation for District 4. In its statement, the Observer Mission noted that “the process employed by the Returning Officer for Region 4 is not transparent and, based on the numbers that have emanated since the process was first disrupted, is unlikely to produce a result that is credible and is able to command public confidence. The legitimacy of any government that is installed in these circumstances will be open to question. This would be a terrible blow to the country’s democracy.”
The Observer Mission to Guyana’s elections is now likely to report its findings to the Permanent Council of the OAS, as is required under the Inter-American Charter on Democracy. Arising from that report, the OAS is likely to make a pronouncement on the legitimacy of any government emerging out of the elections of 2nd March 2020.
It can hardly refuse to do so given the findings of its own Observer Mission, the contents of the Inter-American Charter on Democracy and the precedent it has set concerning the elections in Venezuela.
The Charter is clear on the relationship between free and fair elections and representative democracy. The OAS subscribes to the position that free and fair elections is vital to democracy.
In 2006, the then Assistant General Secretary of the Organization of American States (OAS), Albert Ramdin, addressed a private sector forum in Guyana. He said then that one cannot have democracy without legitimate, transparent, free and fair elections. This is the official position of the OAS- unless an election is free, fair and transparent, there can be no democracy.
Admittedly, the OAS has a controversial record when it comes to upholding democracy in the western hemisphere. But it is hardly likely to overlook the irregularities of Guyana’s recent elections when it has acted so forcibly concerning elections in Venezuela.
In the case of Venezuela, the OAS does not recognize Nichols Maduro as the President of Venezuela. It does not recognize him even as the de facto President. If the OAS, as expected, does not accept the legitimacy of the elections in Guyana, it is hard to see how it can even offer to accept David Granger as the de facto President given the uncompromising position it took in Venezuela.
Guyana may have shot itself in the foot when it voted in support of that Resolution in the OAS on 10th January 2019. By voting not to recognize the new-term of Maduro, Guyana has made it next to impossible for Granger to be accepted even as a de facto President.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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The vote in the OAS that has come back to haunt Guyana

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