The Government’s plan to have the American nonprofit organisation, International Republican Institute (IRI), assist Guyana’s electoral reform process, is not sitting well with the Opposition and several other organisations.
In fact, several days ago, the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), a former member of the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) expressed its dissatisfaction with the move. It argued that the entity should not be handling electoral matters for a sovereign state like Guyana. It further noted that the IRI ‘supported’ the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) during the March 2020 General and Regional Elections, when it condemned actions it deemed illegal in electoral matters.
The WPA posited that Guyanese should be the ones to effect changes to the electoral system. Meanwhile, the government has also faced criticism from several sections of society, accusing the administration of sidelining the main Parliamentary Opposition, APNU + Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) from the process.
But the government said today that it is “downright naïve for anyone to think that such a process can be undertaken without the input of the major opposition political party in Guyana.
The administration said that law reforms must be done through the parliament and the Opposition will have an input both in and out of parliament.
“The defunct WPA has finally found its voice and not surprisingly, is completely inaccurate in its accusation that the IRI will spearhead the electoral reform process. This is simply not the truth as the Government of Guyana will be leading the process. Other insignificant surrogate organisations have
similarly risen from dormancy. Their puerile outpourings are unworthy of a response,” the PPP/C said.
The party also bashed the Guyana Human Rights Association. It said that for five long months when Guyana’s democracy was “under siege, and while every major local organisation made its voice heard, every international organisation in this hemisphere played a part, and one hundred (100) Governments across the Globe lent their support, we did not hear a murmur from the GHRA”.
“The attack upon the International Republican Institute’s (IRI’s) role in Guyana’s electoral reform process has been misrepresented and manipulated to win political partisan and ethnic sentiments. The International Republican Institute is not new to Guyana and is part of a constellation of organisations
that have worked to improve Guyana’s democratic process over the years. Indeed, the very APNU+AFC Coalition who is condemning the IRI now was comfortable in partnering with the very IRI during the 2011 and 2015 electoral campaigns across the country. In 2014, the IRI supported the formation of the
Guyana National Youth Council. A month before the elections, the group rolled out its ‘Vote Like a Boss Campaign’ – a slogan that was coincidentally being used by the APNU+AFC Coalition in its campaigning.”
The PPP/C said that the “sudden disdain and criticism of the IRI is simply duplicitous and disingenuous”.
IRI says it is the premier international democracy-development organization, and its “nonpartisan, nongovernmental Institute has performed high-impact work in more than 100 countries since 1983”.
