Ramsammy’s elections-for-oil accusation “absurd”- US diplomat

Last Updated on Monday, 1 June 2015, 12:52 by GxMedia

The United States (US) has rubbished as “absurd” claims by former Health Minister Dr. Leslie Ramsammy that the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC) was out maneuvered from office because of crude oil interest by the international community.

“Minister Ramsammy’s accusation is absurd,” said US Charge D’Affaires at the American Embassy in Guyana, Bryan Hunt.

Noting that the PPP has made it clear that it does not share Ramsammy’s point of view, Hunt did not believe that such an utterance could hurt efforts to implement a new democracy and governance project that would involve government, the opposition and civil society.

“I don’t believe that accusations by a single individual have a whole lot of weight when they are not based on anything other than absurdity; when nobody is paying any attention to someone who is screaming on Social Media- they can scream as loudly as they like and continue to be ignored,” said Hunt.

In the twelve-paragraph article on his Facebook headlined, “Is oil now reason for rigged elections?” the former Minister, who is an American citizen, noted that in the vulgar haste to produce an early result Guyana may have been gifted, “with another government born out of fraud and rigging.”

“We do not believe that these suspicious elections results, however, were merely out of expediency to obtain an early result. We believe that there was an unholy alliance to ensure Guyana gifted certain stakeholders with a government, not of, by and for the people, but for international stakeholders. We believe this to be the case because one or more of these international stakeholders is interested in Guyana’s oil deposits.”

Ramsammy’s position comes against the background of the recent discovery of “significant” oil deposits offshore Guyana by the American firm, Exxon-Mobil.