A United States (US) Congressman who once asked the Obama administration to investigate the PPP Government over elections and who attended the Coalition’s victory party in New York, has claimed that it is “outrageous” for the US to intervene in Guyana’s elections.
“If we are alarmed at foreign interference in our electoral process, why in the world is the US Government engaging in foreign interference in the affairs of an independent nation in Guyana? It’s outrageous,” Congressman Hakeem Jeffries said.
The Congressman made the comment two days ago during an online interview with A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) activist Rickford Burke.
Jeffries is Chair of the House Democratic Caucus and is a high ranking Democrat who represents New York’s 8th Congressional District. That District includes Brooklyn and part of Queens – areas where there is a heavy concentration of Guyanese.
The politician suggested that the US should merely monitor how democracy unfolds, but should not interfere.
“Now traditionally, we can monitor how democracy is playing itself out in different parts of the world, but to interfere in such an extraordinary way, in a manner that appears to favour one party, the opposition party, potentially to the detriment of the ruling party is deeply troubling to a lot of us in Washington DC,” he said.
The US has been the leading voice in the list of foreign powers who have threatened sanctions, for Guyana and for specific individuals, if a Government is sworn in on basis of fraudulent results.
Those foreign powers, international observers, and most of the local observers have deemed two declarations of the March 2, 2020 elections as having been made on the basis of fraud.
Those declarations handed a victory to the APNU+AFC despite strong opposition and condemnation from the other 10 opposition political parties which collectively agreed that the tabulation process lacked transparency.
As such, the foreign powers have threatened sanctions. They have also repeated a collective call for the process to be concluded in a fair and transparent way.
But according to the US Congressman, who is a critic of the Trump administration, the US is not in a position to tell any country how to conduct its elections.
“…it seems to me that we are not in a position to tell anybody until we get our own act together as it relates to how faithfully we conduct a free, fair election that protects the wellbeing of the American people, that we are not necessarily in a position to tell anybody else about how to go about doing their job.”
The Congressman said that the US Government may be trying to direct Guyana as to how it should conduct its election, but that it (the US) has been “irresponsible” in how it has been handling its own elections.
It was Jeffries who, back in 2015, had written to then US Secretary of State, John Kerry, requesting that the US examine the conduct of Guyana’s then President Donald Ramotar who had prorogued Parliament at that time.
The letter, which was also signed by Congresswoman Yvette Clarke stated that: “The apparent attempt by President Ramotar to prevent general elections has effectively disenfranchised the people of Guyana by precluding a majority of the members of the National Assembly from acting in the interests of their constituents.”
As a result, the Officials called for the then Secretary of State “to investigate this situation in collaboration with the community of nations and to work with elected officials in Guyana to secure fair elections in which the people the ability to control the future of their nation.”
After the APNU+AFC won the 2015 elections, Jeffries attended its victory rally in Brooklyn as a special guest. At that event, the Congressman had noted that the US will stand with the government against its enemies – domestic and foreign.
“The work is not over, it’s just beginning and we know that we gonna have to stand with your country, stand with Guyana, stand with the government against all enemies- foreign and domestic,” he said at the victory rally.
