Claims of widespread fraud tarnish Commonwealth technical staff – Ex PM of Barbados Owen Arthur

Head of the Commonwealth Observer Team, Owen Arthur, wants to put on record his belief that accusations of fraud and widespread rigging on Election Day stand to tarnish the reputations of two Commonwealth-funded consultants attached to the Guyana Elections Commission.

Owen ArthurIn an exclusive interview with Kaieteur News yesterday, the head of the Commonwealth Observer Team to Guyana’s elections said that he was concerned that recent claims of widespread ‘fraud’ in the process will have implications for two consultants who worked to help GECOM develop its electoral systems.

“The Commonwealth not only observed the Guyanese elections,” Arthur said, “but it had provided technical assistance to GECOM in the form of two experts, high qualified people from other countries in the Commonwealth, experts in electoral matters who helped to define and develop and perfect the electoral process that was implemented on election day.  These men’s reputations now stand to be buffeted by allegations that the system that they helped to define and develop was characterized and tainted by massive fraud.”

Arthur told this paper that the two men have been working with the GECOM Secretariat for about a year leading up to the polls and that their reputations were without question in the Commonwealth.  He said that all senior political stakeholders who had engaged with the consultants in the lead up to the elections had expressed satisfaction with their work.

PM Arthur says that he was privileged to lead a team of professional people and that the elections day activities were conducted without any significant hurdles. He said that he was privileged even to observe a counting activity first hand.  He expressed the hope that the country’s issues would be resolved quickly and that the country would get back to some sense of normalcy.