Powerful partisan US senatorial group asks President Granger to allow observers back in country

May 14, 2020 News

– appeal for free and unfettered access to all aspects of recount

A high-level bipartisan group of American senators has officially written President David Granger urging that he accommodate more international observers into the country one week after he denied a similar request from the United States embassy here.
The letter signed by Republican Senators Marco Rubio and Jim Risch, as well as Democratic Senators Bob Menendez, Ben Cardin, and Tim Kaine represents the most significant escalation in messaging from the American legislature since the March 2nd elections.
“As friends of Guyana,” the group noted, “we are closely monitoring the recount and support that it be conducted in a free, fair, and transparent manner. A crucial part of this process is that credible international observers be allowed to return to Guyana and be given free and unfettered access to all aspects of the recount in order to confirm the integrity of the process.”
The letter comes in the wake of President Granger’s refusal to allow the team back in, particularly in his March 6 response, through the Minister of Foreign Affairs Karen Cummings.
That response was to a March 4 appeal made by American Ambassador, Sarah-Ann Lynch to let a Carter Center observer team and a technical support team from the International Republican Institute (IRI) back into the country to observe and assist in the recount process.
This would be Marco Rubio’s second intervention: on March 7th, the Republican senator for the state of Florida, had issued a statement that read:
“The completion of a peaceful, free, and fair electoral process in Guyana is in the best interest of the country as well as of all the freedom-loving nations in our hemisphere. Following a marred vote tabulation on March 2, the presence of international electoral observers and representatives of all political parties must be guaranteed. At a time when Guyana’s democratic future is at stake, the U.S. must stand in support of the preservation of the rule of law and democratic transition of power as established by the nation’s constitution. It is critical that all actors call for maintaining social order and defend Guyana’s constitutional order.”
This input would have been significant considering that Rubio is the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights, and Global Women’s Issues, a powerful subcommittee in the upper house of America’s legislature.

In this most recent intervention, Rubio is joined by similar senatorial heavyweights, most notably fellow Republican Risch (Idaho) who is Chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and Democrat Menendez (New Jersey) who is the committee’s ranking member. This committee, the umbrella organ over the one Rubio chairs, sets the foreign policy direction for the US upper house. Democrat Ben Cardin (Maryland) is also a member of the Rubio-chaired sub-committee, while Tim Kaine, the otherwise highly decorated junior senator from the state of Virginia, is most notable for being selected as Hillary Clinton’s Vice-Presidential running mate in her 2016 run against Donald Trump for the US presidency. It should be noted that while Rubio, Menendez and Cardin come from states in which there are significant Caribbean/Guyanese constituencies, Kaine and Risch do not.

The letter from the group noted that “…while we recognize that Guyana has closed its international airport as part of its efforts to address COVID-19, we understand that your government is providing special authorization in important cases. With full respect for Guyana’s public health measures, we are hopeful that you will consider the presence of additional international observers an essential step to strengthening the credibility of the recount.”

This would be seen as a direct response to the fact that while President Granger had asked Ambassador Lynch to respect his decision to close off the airports as a measure to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus (the excuse given for not allowing the Carter Center and IRI representatives back into the country) the government has not only allowed in the CARICOM observer team back in but has facilitated several flights carrying dozens of oil sector workers in and out of the country in the past two weeks.

This is the second bipartisan intervention on the Guyana recount that has come out of the US House of Representative in as many days. On Monday, Democratic congress members Albio Spires (New Jersey), Gregory Meeks (New York), and Sanford Bishop (Georgia), joined their Republican colleagues Francis Rooney (Florida), Jeff Duncan (South Carolina) and Jennifer González-Colón (Puerto Rico) in appealing for the Carter Center’s return.

“We appreciate the vital role that the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) has played in advancing democratic principles in Guyana” they said in a joint statement, “At the same time, we urge the Government of Guyana to allow the observation team from the Carter Center and technical advisory team from the International Republican Institute to return to the country to join CARICOM in observing the recount process. We remain dedicated to ensuring the Guyanese people are free to exercise their right to vote, their votes are accurately counted and that they are able to shape a democratic and prosperous future for their nation.”
The position taken by the two bipartisan groups from Congress comes in contrast to the stance taken by one of their colleagues last week. In an interview with New York-based coalition activist Rickford Burke last week, Hakeem Jeffries, representative New York’s eight congressional district and current Chair of the Congressional Democratic caucus had criticized what he referred to as interference from the White House. In the interview, Jeffries – who had teamed up with Congresswoman Yvette Clarke to write then Secretary of State John Kerry to intervene in 2015 when former President Donald Ramotar had prorogued Parliament – called US government pronouncements on the 2020 elections “outrageous” and disturbing to several of his colleagues in Washington, DC. He has not since then released any further statement on the issue nor has indicated which of his congressional colleagues shared the same view.
In an interview with Kaieteur Radio yesterday, American Ambassador Sarah-Ann Lynch expressed optimism that the Carter Center and IRI teams would be let back into the country to participate in the recount.