The Alliance For Change (AFC) has saluted former US President Jimmy Carter and his observer missions despite blocking the Carter Center from fully observing the 2020 elections while it held on to the seat of government with its Coalition partner APNU and tried to rig those elections.
The Carter Center, which had been instrumental in monitoring elections in Guyana since the 1990s, played a pivotal role in restoring free and fair elections in 1992 after years of electoral rigging. The Carter Center, though absent, played an indirect role in calling attention to these events by voicing its concerns about the lack of transparency.
Its presence has historically been a hallmark of transparency in the country’s democratic processes. However, during the 2020 elections, the Coalition government, of which the AFC was a part, denied the Carter Center’s request to observe the elections at a time when allegations of attempted rigging against the Coalition were mounting.
The APNU+AFC government denied the Carter Center observers from entering Guyana under the guise of COVID-19 restrictions.
The COVID-19 Task Force denied the international observers permission to enter Guyana on a chartered flight which landed in Guyana on May 4 to repatriate U.S citizens stuck here. The US, Canadian Governments and the EU had urged the Government to reconsider its position, but it did not.
In its tribute to Carter, the AFC described him as a “staunch defender of democratic principles” and credited his efforts for playing a key role in advancing democracy in Guyana.
“Guyanese will remember President Cater’s ushering in of a liberal democracy in 1992… and his ever-present team of Observers, during and after, General and Regional elections,” The AFC said in a statement posted by its current leader Nigel Hughes, on his Facebook page.
The 2020 elections eventually led to the swearing-in of Dr Irfaan Ali of the PPP as President after a five-month-long impasse, during which local and international observers exposed attempts to manipulate the results in favour of the Coalition.
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