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“It’s a bunch of nonsense”
…Jagdeo shrugs off Carter Center’s damning report
Vice President and General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/C) Bharrat Jagdeo
Kaieteur News – General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/C) Bharrat Jagdeo has sought to play down the damning report by the Carter Center on government’s abuse of state resources to campaign as well as local banks over-complying with OFAC sanctions on the Mohameds by closing the accounts of candidates of the We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) party. He described some of findings in the report as a “bunch of nonsense” and praised those that were not critical of the government.
The center has been observing key activities, including nomination day and a series of campaign launches and events, as part of its effort to assess electoral preparations and the political environment in Guyana ahead of the September 1 polls.
In a pre-election report released on Tuesday, the Carter Center said that local commercial banks may be over-complying with the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions imposed on WIN’s Presidential Azruddin Mohamed with them closing the accounts of several of the party’s candidates.
The center said too that the action undermines political participation and electoral integrity by discouraging people from participating fully in the political process. “The private sector has an important role to play in safeguarding democratic rights and freedoms and, as such, must ensure decisions do not discriminate against individuals for exercising those rights,” the statement read.
Jagdeo at his press conference on Thursday said that he finds this position of the Carter Center to be strange. He expressed concerns that the center, a political organisation is telling banks how to conduct their operations. Jagdeo added, “even OFAC refused to do that, OFAC made it very explicit, and that’s the United States Treasury Department, which is a financial institution, said: we will not tell the local banks what to do, because each bank operates within a framework. So I find that very strange.”
Moreover, Jagdeo expressed concerns over other findings by the Carter Center, including that the PPP alleged misuse of state resources including the state media in its ongoing campaign to conjure up support for Guyana’s upcoming general and regional elections. The center said it has received multiple allegations from political parties and civil society that the ruling party has misused state resources. In relation to the use of state vehicles, Jagdeo argued that Irfaan Ali is still the president. He noted, “So you expect the president not to go with his vehicle, it’s a bunch of nonsense…”
The vice president also dismissed the center’s findings of abuse of media. He said, “What I find strange is that the press association got into the report, almost conveniently that somebody is harassing them, government officials are harassing them, intimidating them when they go out…”
“Whilst they accurately reflected them as allegations by the opposition, they didn’t cover all the allegations,” the vice president contended. Jagdeo went on to list issues like vote buying which he thinks should have been addressed in the report. On the flip side, Jagdeo disclosed that he is pleased with the Carter Center findings that there is no evidence of a bloated Official List of Electors (OLE). He said this finding confirms what the PPP has been contending all along and would put the Opposition’s concern to rest that the list flawed. “This has been APNU’s battle cry all along. They have been at this for the last several years, saying the list is bloated, that people who should not be on the list are on the list…so the Carter Center examined all the evidence, and they found no evidence of a bloated list,” Jagdeo noted.
Secondly, Jagdeo is also pleased that the center found that the 2025 election campaign is being conducted in a peaceful manner, allowing all political parties to campaign freely across the country. He added, “So I’m extremely pleased with those findings, because they’re crucial to the conduct of elections, whether you have a bloated list or people can’t campaign freely or in a peaceful manner.”
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