The paradox of peace

Sep 14, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

---

Kaieteur News – An election season visited by peace as a close and steady companion.  Has Guyana ever had one?  Not quite, not even close.  Can Guyana have one?  That was the wail, the forlorn hope.  And then it did.  In 2025, the elections were largely peaceful.  Apart from some hiccups – heavy ones repeatedly experienced by a new entrant – the process from campaigning to counting was peaceful.  Unprecedented and not unwelcomed.  In fact, Guyanese exhaled long and slow.  Did it really happen that way, and what was responsible?  Yes, it did happen, and the origins of that season of relative tranquility will puzzle, then maybe persuade.  Just maybe.

What was the different component in the 2025 elections, what I believe was a major contributor, the difference-maker?  How about that heavy foreign contingent that is all over?  Though the international elections observer missions must be included in this company, it is more than those, and to there I go.  With all these foreign companies and all their vested interests, they themselves had a stake in peace and stability.  Ah, that proper and healthy investor climate.  When the ground is calm, they come.  And when they are around in their numbers, good money can be wagered that their embassies are in close attendance, very vigilant.  Some may label that the pressure of moral suasion aka jawboning where it counts – leaders.  Leaders with radical ideas, passions, and a constituency that is impatient.  Instead of that sophisticated stuff, I prefer the power of an invisible presence.  Like God, the foreign brigade was there, and though steadfastly out of sight and quiet, they mattered.

Which one of the competitors in the 2025 elections race (a bad word that still has some energy) was oblivious to the watchers?  A frown inserts a chill; a concerned phone call is the last development needed, but one that must be taken.  Who’s holding the line?  Who’s going to be responsible for any fallout, the aftermath?  Some of the wealth may be in the sea, and another basket of it among the timbers.  Indeed, it is so.  But the movers and shakers stand like well-placed sentinels on land, and they miss nothing.  Notice how well-behaved, for the most part, the various political groups were.  The spectacle was not of opposition groups deteriorating into moblike frenzies.  In 2025, the opposition political parties monopolized proper management of themselves and their assets, such as they were.  Especially their zealous, raucous, and rambunctious human assets, which were largely muzzled or neutered.

The question is simple, yet deep: self-correction or resistance to self-destruction?  Because to go out into the political badlands of Guyana and carry on like old times was no longer on the table.  Or, to be as blunt as blunt can be: which one of Guyana’s opposition parties wanted to be on the wrong side of Exxon?  That would be bad for business.  Corporate business.  Local political business.  Leadership business (ambitions alongside visions).  Why give Guyana a bad name at this time of all time, and end up in the bad books of ABCE and Zee.  I think everyone understands, where everyone stands.  Hence, there was peace in the bright city and in the dark valley.

The wise in Guyana (and foreign readers) may wonder if I am giving the people in charge a free pass.  I don’t have to, as they took care of that, all by themselves.  Sanctity of contract makes all things possible.  In a nutshell, give the foreigners first priority, put the highest premium on foreign interests, and there’s the free pass that the people in charge guaranteed themselves.  The GRA unleashed.  The GPF unmuzzled.  Supporters unhinged and armed with the utensils of confrontation and assorted other weaponry are all considered child’s play.  After all, those are not too upheaving to the ambience of the environment.  And, then let’s all remember that boys will be boys.  Girls wanna have fun.  So, why not boys also?

It wasn’t that Guyana’s political players grew up, became disciplined, and gained a superb understanding of the right way.  It was that they appreciated the consequences of taking the wrong road.  Heard anything about renegotiation or ring-fencing?  Yes, there was.  But by then it was light years too late, and way too little to make a difference.  Think of a mother at the market who’s thinking of buying.  It doesn’t matter what a brave face she puts on, she just doesn’t have what it takes.  No cash, no carry.  Ditto all the hazy, lazy, cozy talk about doing this and that with that liquid aquatic bonanza.  Irrelevant and inconsequential.  I think it was a lovely strategy: say nothing about oil.  Then say something for the media and the archives.

So, there was peace in 2025.  The problem from my perspective was that the price of peace was so steep.

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

---

• election season, GHK Lall, paradox, peace

---