PNC/R hints it may not contest next elections
--- reiterates 1997 poll fraud claim
Guyana Chronicle
July 5, 2003
THE PNC/R has hinted that it may not be contesting Guyana’s next general election because of what it claims is the corrupting of the process by the ruling PPP/C.
PNC/R executive member Vincent Alexander gave that hint at a conference on “Conflict Resolution and Ideas for Governance in Guyana” at the University of Guyana.
But his colleague, Raphael Trotman, said at a party news conference on Thursday that no final decision had been made on the issue.
Mr. Trotman, one of the candidates vying to succeed Mr. Desmond Hoyte as leader of the PNC/R until Mr. Hoyte’s sudden death in December, said it was no secret that “party supporters for the last part were encouraged not to participate in the (1997) elections,” which he said were “considered one-sided, corrupt. The evidence coming out of the 1997 elections speaks for themselves…”
He spoke against the backdrop of local, regional and international observers certifying that the 1997 polls were free, fair and transparent.
At the PNC’s request, a team of auditors from the Caribbean recounted the ballots and endorsed the original results.
Mr. Trotman told reporters at the PNC/R’s news conference on Thursday that he didn’t “believe Mr. Alexander intended to, in his comments, to mean that we have already taken a decision as such” not to contest the next elections. “Naturally, of course, planning our programme for the elections, whenever they do come, we will have to give consideration whether or not it makes sense at all to have what some people now call an ethnic census which is held every four or five years.
“I don’t believe that Mr. Alexander intended for it to be translated into a decision already made but certainly he was expressing the frustration of our own constituency, which feels that the PPP/C has corrupted the process and that future elections are going to be a reflection of that already corrupted process.”
In a response to the PNC/R’s claims, a PPP/C official forwarded the following document which he said was among those declassified by the U.S.