CARICOM – time for its scrutineers to step forward

Jun 11, 2020 Editorial

The word and stand from the Coalition leadership represent a high-risk gamble. Notwithstanding the pivotal role of GECOM, all of the Coalition’s eggs relative to the recount have been placed in the basket of CARICOM. It is not only a most sensitive place for those who dispatched the team of scrutineers to be in, but a worrying one for the small group on the ground here. It is the worst of places, with the worst choices available.
The EU observers, the OAS mission, the Commonwealth group have all spoken with the same voice: the recount points to an opposition victory at the 2020 polls. To those, one could have reasonably and safely added the Carter Center team, if it were allowed to be here. How could it not have seen the same thing and been the same way as to the finality of the recount outcome? And because of all of this, the CARICOM team has been placed in the hottest of seats by the Coalition. So, what now from this almost invisible, definitely inaudible group of three?
It could link arms and join ranks with the others from more distant places and endorse the numbers, process, and ending. Of course, and it goes without saying, that nothing associated with elections in this country ever ends. If the CARICOM team joins the chorus of observers and pronounces accordingly, then it runs the high risk of being tarnished. The alarms and anger of former PM Owen Arthur should come to mind, when he lamented the wounding of the Commonwealth group.
Alternatively, the CARICOM team could inexplicably and without foundation go out on a limb, find for the Coalition, and end up with zero credibility ever after in the minds of close to half of the Guyanese population. It is damned whichever it turns. For to declare for the Coalition would rope the wider CARICOM agency into the ugly racial prejudices of Guyana and shatter, perhaps forever, its usefulness throughout the region as a neutral mediator, as a helpful neighbour. This would happen no matter how the team rationalizes or nuances its findings; it will be denounced as biased. And if it were to join the crowd and fall short of the Coalition’s expectations, then it will be ostracized and judged the weakest of betrayers.
Thus, a CARICOM observer team stands in the eye of the hurricane, a physical place that is political and electoral Guyana (racial Guyana). That eye should be familiar to its members due to their seasonal and national exposures to nature’s elements. Now they have been called upon with confidence. It must be the most honourable and wisest conclusion. There is doubt that the CARICOM scrutineers could have seen anything in any consistent bulk that compels it to stand and pronounce against the wall of opposing winds. If it were to do so on foundations that are rickety, then it would have no credibility itself. As said before, not the team of people in the Guyanese milieu, but the bigger CARICOM body.
Their work, which was never going to be easy, suddenly got immeasurably harder, with eyes fixed on them and high expectations associated with them. They must not disappoint in any degree. This is with regard to the many expectations of truth, of accuracy, and of principle.
How to stand? And whom to stand for or against when there is swirling a powerful claim of massive cheating/fraud/rigging/
deception to the tune of 84,000 votes. Perhaps, it is wiser to present this in a different way: what not to stand for through the final written position presented? What not to be a party to and condone in any respect, no matter how slight.
Owen Arthur said it best: maybe it is the best thing not to go there anymore, or consent to involvement there anymore. There would be this lovely home of ours called Guyana. Since to do so comes with the highest probability of personal and entity wide taint. These things may not mean anything here, where the brutal and unsavory fight for power is the be all and end all. However, they do elsewhere and that is what should matter to the CARICOM team of scrutineers.

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CARICOM – time for its scrutineers to step forward

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