The hour is upon us…again

Jun 07, 2020 Features / Columnists, News, The Story within the Story

---

By Leonard Gildarie

So yet again, the hour is upon us. The hour of when we are given another chance to choose, and choose wisely. There are a number of doors that are closed. Behind each door, except one, is chaos, distrust, corruption, sanctions, and frankly, lots of wasting of time.
We are not even going to talk about December 21, 2018. That is the day when the no-confidence motion was carried in the National Assembly.
Our country, in anticipation of early elections, has been in a state of suspension since then.
Guyana, the honey on the tongue for oil companies around the globe, was suddenly the darling and it was touted and sold as the next big thing.
From December 21, 2018 to when elections were held on March 2, 2020, the people were like yo-yos, being bounced from court steps to court steps. The statements from the political parties and then the elections raised the rhetoric an octave higher and suddenly, it was all about race. Yes, let us not bury our heads in the sand. The politicians and their social media trolls played the critical role of incensing a situation that threatens.
It is expected today that the month-long recount exercise, agreed to, and committed to, will enter a critical stage. We could even look forward to the tabulation stage being completed today.
On paper, the GECOM secretariat is expected to take the tabulated figures, prepare a report and submit it to the six commissioners and Chair, Justice (Ret’d) Claudette Singh, for considerations.
There are big question marks now on how the observation reports, on which concerns were raised by political parties, will be handled by the commission.
The recount was largely expected to see discrepancies, if you will allow such a word, and this was contemplated as part of the final decision-making process of the commission.
The Coalition is now making it clear that there were collusions between GECOM staffers and even its own representatives to allow Guyanese who are overseas to vote illegally.
On the other hand, the international observers, CARICOM, and the western diplomats have all lauded voting day as a well-run operation.
Officials last week admitted that they are bracing themselves for a court challenge to the recount.
I have laid it all above for us to have a clear understanding of how much time is being wasted while the horse is starving.
Yes, COVID-19 is here with us. People are struggling. The oil people are operating business as usual while the rest of the country is shut. Gold mining is continuing.
Commerce in downtown is almost at a standstill.
All over the country, there has been a growing cry on the hardships. Families are barely able to put food on the table.
The fact is our politicians are not saying anything about the plight of businesses, the poor people and what is expected to happen next.
What is clear is that all eyes are on the elections.
There is small wonder that there seems to be a perception that the populace is becoming more disillusioned by the politics as the days go by.
We are heartened by the emergence of a number of young guns, even in the level of the new parties.
The overseas players have made one thing clear…get it over and done with, and recognise the results as announced by GECOM as quickly as possible.
Guyana is paying little attention to ExxonMobil. The madness with the contract and giving away country’s oil simply cannot be explained away with excuses that we are a frontier country.
We screwed this one badly and I really wished we could blame it on inexperience.
We have so much oil out there yet we are scrambling for a few dollars to handle COVID-19.
We signed off on more than US$3.5B to ExxonMobil for its first phase Lisa project without blinking our eyes.
Why are we now scrambling for a few dollars?
Today, we care not for the oil or gold. Do we really understand that we are losing as every day ticks by?
Does power mean that much? Our people are loving people. We have great food. Lots of gold and more importantly resilience for being able to withstand the hardships forced upon us over the years.
It is time for us to shine and our politicians must understand this.
The European Union Delegation which fielded the largest observers’ mission to Guyana for the elections has issued a report.
A press statement the EU team issued has summarized what was found, in addition to a good elections process on March 2. The issues need to be fixed.
I leaved these with you, compliments of the EU team:
“The EU EOM concluded that overall the elections were competitive and contestants could campaign freely, even though the process took place in a deeply polarised environment. Legal uncertainty, unregulated political finance, biased state media and lack of transparency in the administration of elections characterised the pre-election context.
Voting and counting were well managed all over the country, as was the tabulation of results in nine of Guyana’s ten regions. However, the integrity of the entire electoral process was seriously compromised by the non-transparent and non-credible tabulation of results in the largest and decisive Region 4 by senior GECOM officials, acting in blatant violation of the law and High Court orders issued in this regard.
The EU EOM offers 26 recommendations to improve future electoral processes. These include eight priority recommendations suggesting to review and consolidate the fragmented election legislation; launch a consultation process to overhaul the composition and functioning of GECOM; develop effective legislation to regulate political finance; foster transparency and accountability in online and offline campaigning; transform the state-owned media into a genuine public service broadcaster; adopt clear written procedures for transmission and tabulation of election results; accompany any declaration of results by simultaneous publication of detailed polling station results and digital copies of all Statements of Poll; and establish comprehensive election dispute resolution system.”

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

---

---