The Carter Centre, today, released a statement saying, inter alia, the electoral preparations at the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) are on track and issued a call on political parties to refrain from the use of provocation speech during the campaign trail. However, Leader of the Opposition, Bharrat Jagdeo, wishes that the statement would have been more “expansive”.
“…Whist they gave assurance about procedures etcetera, I wish the statement would have been a bit more expansive on other issues. For example, the unfair nature of the campaign using State resources,” he said, while adding that observer groups should comment on this, because their remit is to ensure free and fair elections.
The former president contends that the State-owned and government-operated media’s role is “partisan”, and that the international election observer groups should pay close attention to their content, given that these media agencies are funded by the citizenry.
“…They’re funded to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars from taxpayers’ money, but their programmes have no balance; their articles have no balance. They just blatantly, openly peddle the APNU’s propaganda…Even worse, they’re used to disparage people [from] all the parties who are contesting against APNU,” he said.
Jagdeo said that the state-owned Guyana Chronicle reported that he and the PPP/C’s Presidential Candidate, Irfaan Ali, were delinquent in filing their 2018 declarations to the Integrity Commission. Jagdeo has since denied this, and has threatened to initiate legal action against the paper.
The Opposition Leader theorised that the article was meant to “absolve” those in the APNU, who did not submit their declarations. Indeed, the Commission had published the names of over a dozen Ministers and agency heads who failed to submit their declarations within the specified time.
“I would hope that the observers would also comment on this because this is also part of their remit. I’ve led observer groups too, before, and part of our remit was to look at the State resource; how they were being used,” he said.
The Opposition Leader’s comments come mere hours after the Coalition’s Prime Ministerial Candidate, Khemraj Ramjattan, dismissed claims that the incumbent President, David Granger’s use of a Guyana Defence Force (GDF)’s helicopter to attend a political rally is an abuse of State resources.
He said that there is “nothing wrong with that” since it is an “advantage of incumbency”. It is acceptable. What is not acceptable is the actual usage of monies from the State’s coffers to fund political party’s programmes, he declared.
