An Open Letter to the election observer missions

Feb 13, 2025 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Peeping Tom…

Kaieteur News-Later this year, you will arrive in Guyana as protectors of the integrity of our democracy. Your work in observing this year’s elections will make you arbiters of the fundamental principle that elections must not only be free and fair on the day ballots are cast but in the months leading up to that fateful moment.

It therefore is with grave concern that I alert you to the insidious erosion of that very principle, the quiet strangulation of political competition through threats, intimidation, and a campaign of public vilification orchestrated by those desperate to hold on to power.

Democracy is not merely a matter of placing the ballot into the ballot boxes and tallying votes accurately; it is the full breadth of political participation, the untrammelled right of any citizen to throw their hat into the electoral ring without fear of retribution. And yet, here we stand in 2025, watching the spectacle of coercion unfold before our eyes, as the ruling party deploys every underhanded tactic to deter, discourage, and destroy those who they merely suspect may contest their rule.

A party operative has already sounded the alarm, issuing an open threat against those who might seek candidacy. There was no coded language, no diplomatic obfuscation—just a bare-knuckled warning that those who seek to challenge the ruling party will be ‘dealt’ with. This is not the rhetoric of a healthy democracy; it is the language of tyranny. It is an unmistakable signal that political participation comes at a cost, that dissent will be met with punishment. It is a warning not just to candidates, but to all who might support them.

And now, the dirty tricks campaign has begun. Public smears against potential candidates. Anonymous attacks against those who dare to criticize. Fabricated scandals appearing on social media. The manufacturing of doubt, the slow erosion of reputations, the political guillotine that cuts down challengers before they even step onto the stage. It is a strategy as old as autocracy itself. It makes the battlefield so toxic that the most promising candidates may decide it is not worth the fight.

To be clear, these are not mere political squabbles. This is a calculated campaign of intimidation aimed at ensuring that the ballot in the 2025 general and regional elections reflects only a two-party contest. And this calls attention to an inconvenient truth: a country in which potential candidates are threatened, harassed, and smeared is not a country that is holding free and fair elections.

Too often, election observers operate on the mistaken assumption that what matters most is Election Day itself—the long queues, the ballot boxes, the vote count. But what good is a clean Election Day if the field has been scorched beforehand? If potential candidates have been threatened into silence? If the process has been so tainted that only the ruling party’s preferred opponents remain? If this is the case, then democracy has already lost before a single vote is cast.

There is an old and cynical tactic at play here, one perfected by regimes that wish to retain the facade of democracy while ensuring its practical demise: allow the election to appear orderly, let the observers see a peaceful process, but ensure that the real contest—the battle over who gets to stand for election in the first place—is rigged long before the voting begins.

This is where you, the election observer missions, must take heed. Your responsibility is not only to scrutinize what happens on the day of the election but to assess whether the conditions for a fair contest have existed in the months leading up to it. The threats, the intimidation, the dirty tricks campaign—these are the warning signs of a democracy in peril. They are the silent prelude to a rigged election, one in which the voters are given a ‘choice’ that has already been artificially limited by fear and coercion.

We urge you, therefore, to speak out now, while the damage can still be undone. Demand an end to the threats. Insist on political protections for all who seek to contest these elections. Let it be known that an election cannot be deemed free and fair simply because there was no violence at the polling stations or skullduggery during the counting and tallying of votes. A democracy where candidates must risk their safety to participate is no democracy at all.

The ruling party believes it can get away with these tactics because the world’s gaze is often too narrow, too fixated on the spectacle of Election Day itself. Prove them wrong. Widen your lens. See the whole picture. And let the verdict be clear: any election conducted under the shadow of fear is not an election worth the name.

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

(An Open Letter to the election observer missions)

 

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• Democracy, Guyana, integrity, Peeping Tom, public vilification

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