Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Keith Rowley said that his country’s Chief Elections Officer did not return to be a part of the CARICOM scrutineer team for Guyana’s General and Regional Elections recount because of local court accusations that the CARICOM team had originally been there illegally.
“It was my view and the view of this Government that being the outcome of that altruistic approach, that the Chief Elections Officer of Trinidad and Tobago ought not to be in that situation at any time to be accused in that way, in a CARICOM country,” Rowley last Friday told his country’s Parliament. “So we did not send back our Election Officer there because we want to preserve our pristine position in these matters of the conduct of free and fair elections,” he added.
He told the House of Representatives there is a CARICOM team here now and his government is “anxiously awaiting a positive outturn, meaning a conclusion to an election in Guyana.”
Responding to questions from opposition member Ganga Singh on why Fern Narcis-Scope, the country’s Chief Elections Officer, did not return as part of the current team, Rowley said that he wanted to make it clear that his party has no vested interest here. “None of us in this government or in the PNM is invested in any way in Guyana. We have no horse in Guyana; except that we want the best for the people of Guyana and we want to see them solve their problems as quickly as possible, so that the results of an election could be concluded and that Guyana could continue to maintain its high standing in CARICOM,” Rowley said.
“I took the position, that Trinidad and Tobago had made its position very clear. There was an observer mission in Guyana from CARICOM. That mission observed the election, the election took place, that mission left before the results were concluded, because had the mission stayed, they would have been there all now,” he added.
