Nagamootoo wants int’l inquiry into foreign interference in Guyana’s 2020 Elections

Mar 30, 2020 News

Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo has said that he hopes there will be support for an international inquiry into foreign interference in Guyana’s 2020 general and regional elections.
He made these and other comments in the most recent edition of his column, My Turn, in the state newspaper, Guyana Chronicle.
He also hopes that such an inquiry could examine a purported attempt at a regime change of a “friendly government”.
Nagamootoo believes that “foreign electoral engineers and their local lackeys” have attempted to “dislodge a democratically elected government”.
He submitted that he met Dean Rusk in 1995, a former American Secretary of State, “who had reportedly played an infamous role in the earlier destabilisation of a legally elected government in the then British Guiana.”
Of today, Nagamootoo said there are threats of sanctions and “an undeclared war of terror”.
“The PPP, once the victim of foreign intervention, has become the Trojan Horse of erstwhile geo-strategic interests. Its pseudo leaders are gleefully inviting more foreign interference.”
Foreign powers have urged that the elections results produced in a credible manner. The collation has responded to threats of sanctions for electoral fraud by insisting that its hands are clean.
Statements have come from officials of the US, Canada, The United Kingdom, India, Norway and a few more, expressing concern for the integrity of Guyana’s electoral process, beginning after region four returning officer Clairmont Mingo unlawfully declared the results for the largest and most contentious district.
Most recently, the Acting Assistant Secretary for the US Department of State’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, Michael Kozak had tweeted that he had summoned Guyana’s Ambassador to the US, Dr. Riyad Insanally, to make clear the position of the US on the swearing in of an illegitimate government in Guyana, and of the consequences that would follow.
Noting this, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Guyana is a sovereign state governed by the rule of law, and that government has never interfered intervened in the work of Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).
“It is interesting to note the number of times that the American Deputy Secretary of State [Kozak] has intervened to issue threats against Guyana, even as the United States is battling its own challenges in the fight against COVID-19, as all of our countries are doing at this time. The urgency of the Guyana mission appears to take precedence,” Nagamootoo said.
The governing coalition has also alleged that there have been attempts to interfere in Guyana’s electoral process, aided by Russian operatives.
These allegations were put forward by the Prime Ministerial hopeful and Public Security Minister, Khemraj Ramjattan and Executive Member of the Alliance for Change (AFC), Cathy Hughes, days after the elections were held. Fingers were pointed at the main opposition party.
The governing coalition has also been putting forward the argument that Mercury Public Affairs LLC may have somehow meddled in the electoral process.
Nagamootoo said “They [the PPP/C] have earlier contracted a controversial foreign U.S.-based company to set its agenda, and they have since joined the wolf-pack of anti-nationalist elements who want sanctions against Guyana.”
Mercury was hired by the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) starting last year to represent its interests internationally. While Mercury has been implicated in a scheme to hide foreign influence peddling in the US 2016 election, no evidence has been put forward to support assertions that it has had any untoward interference in Guyana’s electoral process.

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