Congressman asks US officials not to interfere in country’s internal affairs

NEW YORK (CMC):

A high-ranking United States Democratic Congressman has strongly urged US Ambassador to Guyana, Sarah Ann Lynch, and assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the US Department of State, Michael Kozak, not to interfere in Guyana’s disputed March 2 elections.

The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) is currently conducting a countrywide recount of all ballots in the presence of Caribbean Community (CARICOM) scrutineers.

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, chairman of the US House of Representatives’ Democratic Caucus, accused the US State Department officials of interfering in the elections to benefit Guyana’s main opposition People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C).

“Traditionally, we can monitor how democracy is playing itself out in different parts of the world, but to interfere in such an extraordinary way and in a manner which favours one party, the opposition party, potentially to the detriment of the ruling party, is deeply troubling to a lot of us in Washington, DC,” said Jeffries, who represents the 8th US Congressional District in New York.

Jeffries, whose district encompasses large parts of Brooklyn and Queens, New York, with significant concentration of Caribbean immigrants, made the comment on a television show hosted by Rickford Burke, president of the Brooklyn, New York-based Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy.

Burke claimed that the US Government officials have also made several threatening statements against officials of President David Granger’s ruling APNU+AFC coalition Government, as well as against GECOM officials.