OAS 35-state Permanent Council meets Tuesday on Guyana situation

Jul 18, 2020 News

The Permanent Council of the Organisation of American States (OAS) meets virtually on Tuesday, July 21 to discuss the electoral situation in Guyana. The meeting was requested by OAS Secretary General, Luis Almagro as Guyana’s governing APNU+AFC coalition, its appointed electoral Commissioners, and the Chief Elections Officer, Keith Lowenfield continued to work towards frustrating the declaration of the recount results.

OAS Secretary General, Luis Almagro

A 2019 meeting of the OAS Permanent Council, during which Guyana voted not to recognise the legitimacy of the Venezuelan Maduro regime, due to non-credible elections

The coalition has since endorsed the use of fraudulent figures as the basis on which a final declaration is be made.
The Permanent Council is one of the two main political bodies of the OAS, alongside the General Assembly, responsible for watching over the maintenance of friendly relations among the member states, and assisting them in the peaceful settlement of their disputes.
Honduras currently holds the Chairmanship of the Permanent Council, with its Permanent Representative, Luis Fernando Cordero Montoya, serving in the post. The Permanent Council has far reaching powers, which could see the powerful 35-state union passing resolutions to condemn wayward states or even to proclaim a government sworn in on fraudulent results as illegitimate.
The OAS had fielded an electoral observer team to Guyana’s elections and the national recount, and is in support of the recount results being used as the basis on which a declaration is made. It has stressed that this is the only acceptable resolution to the electoral impasse.
This became evident in a recent statement: “Let us be very clear – the only democratic solution for Guyana at this time is respect for the results of the national recount. No other figures – neither those prepared prior to the recount, nor those recently invalidated by the Caribbean Court of Justice, nor any others that may be unilaterally devised by the Chief Elections Officer – can have any place in the final determination of results. A new electoral process is also an unacceptable solution.”
In support of its stance, the OAS pointed to Article 1 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, which states that “The peoples of the Americas have a right to democracy and their governments have an obligation to promote and defend it.”
It has been four and a half months since Guyanese cast their ballots; the OAS stated that “It is past time that the current leaders of Guyana comply with their democratic responsibilities and allow the newly elected government to take its place.”
The APNU+AFC Government has previously demonstrated its commitment to the Inter-American Democratic Charter; in 2019, Guyana joined 18 other nations in the hemisphere on the successful resolution at the OAS, condemning the Nicolas Maduro government in Venezuela as illegitimate. It also joined 12 other countries in the Lima Group on a similar resolution to declare the May, 2018 Venezuelan electoral process “lacked legitimacy” and that “we do not recognise the legitimacy of the new presidential term of Nicolas Maduro.”
The hemisphere has piled sanctions on Venezuela, resulting in the country’s economy suffering, while countries refuse to conduct business with it, prompting a refugee crisis that has seen millions of its citizens leaving to neighbouring nations, including Guyana.

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