THE presence of local and foreign observer teams to monitor elections in Guyana on November 28, 2011 is most re-assuring. I am certain that the presence of these teams to observe and pronounce on the elections would help to lend substance to the credibility and integrity of the electoral process. In this regard, observer missions from the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Organisation of American States (OAS) are most welcome since there could be no doubt whatsoever as to the impartiality of these missions in terms of their assessment of the election process.
This is quite unlike what transpired under the PNC when overseas observer teams were not only scoffed upon by the PNC but were deemed as “interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state” by the PNC administration.
It took an inordinate amount of arm-twisting by the Carter Centre to get the Desmond Hoyte administration to agree to allow foreign observer missions to come to Guyana and observe the elections of October 1992.
Former President Desmond Hoyte described the counting of polls at the place of poll as a “logistical nightmare” knowing only too well that PPP/C will emerge victorious at any poll that is free and fair and free from fair.
One can only hope that the presence of overseas missions and that of the EAB would lend credence to the legitimacy of the upcoming polls. This is necessary for the political health of this country which, under the PNC, was badly undermined by its blunt refusal to accept the verdict of the Guyanese people.