THE closer the day, the harder Guyana’s social media influencers try to influence how voters will vote on September 1.

The country’s social media landscape – available every minute on YouTube, Facebook and other platforms – is like nowhere else.

Many with different irons in different partisan fires use their free access to the eyes and ears of the world to virtually and actually say what they want, how they want, about whoever they choose – and in the worst of ways.

Partisan bloggers and abusive online thugs threaten and fight, some even issuing unveiled calls for violence on-air, in a totally-unregulated atmosphere, where, it seems, anything can pass, anytime.

From a distance, it’s virtually impossible to follow all the online broadcasts and podcasts, posts and shares, the extent of subjective subject matters, the depth of personal insults, the verbosity of violent outbursts, as if competing for ‘likes’ for being the most unbelievable, totally dismissive of personal privacy, even inventing reasons and causes to link politicians and their families to claims of corruption.

Not surprisingly, not as much is being discussed online about the real issues at stake in Guyana today, just days ahead of the September 1 elections, when parties are trying to influence voters to make last-minute changes-of-mind.

Desperation is evidently deepening as opposition parties, together and apart, strive to outdo each other, while the ruling alliance campaigns on its achievement record as it seeks a second term.

The electoral horse-race isn’t necessarily as close as being made to appear online.

Usual suspects are already starting to allege electoral irregularities, some even accusing the police officers of association with the ruling party by sipping juice from red plastic cups.

The main opposition alliance is caught in the crosshairs of being challenged by a smaller party in traditional base areas, but seems unable or unwilling to take the challengers to task on the hustings, in case of a tight result requiring a post-election alliance of convenience.

The two major parties have traditionally been able to hold on to their bases at election time and while they may see a third force more as a distraction than a challenge, its online output is also high.

The ruling alliance doesn’t see the wildcard challenger as a threat, but has also had to respond publicly to the molehill of unproven allegations, the public being expected to believe everything said by persons admittedly engaged in billion-dollar illegal activity at home and abroad.

Interestingly, one small opposition party that was part of the system that sought to steal a lost election by displaying poll results on bedsheets in 2020, is today casting aspersions on the much-improved electoral process that’s already under way.

Yet, some opposition politicians – including at leadership levels — are already indicating they will not recognise the results, accusing the ruling alliance of doing just what was done to it by the now opposition alliance five years ago.

The current opposition alliance did everything to maintain control of results and counts after the 2020 Presidential elections, spending five months (March 13 to August 2) trying hard (but failing) to back its loud claims of victory with ‘evidence’ yet-offered five years later.

During that tense period that Guyanese voters won’t have forgotten, the Electoral Commission’s chair was at times considered involuntarily missing-in-action, while the then-ruling alliance’s electoral foot soldiers offered sorry excuses for delays in a final count that would credibly reflect how voters actually voted.

The entire Caribbean was tense back then, as the regional and international press covered the daily standoffs between the losing and winning parties, leading to hard-knuckled intervention by Western nations and regional and international bodies — the US and UK, Organization of American States (OAS) and the (British) Commonwealth — while CARICOM leaders flew in and out of Georgetown to try to convince the hijackers they should stand down.

None of the above proved influential enough, until Washington started indicating it could possibly revoke the US visas of the prime ministerial and party culprits.

It took the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) to firmly reject the wanting legal claims of those who usurped the stolen power of governance to rule illegally for some 150 days.

It’s only after the CCJ’s ruling that the pretenders to the national throne reluctantly agreed to stand-down and allow the winning party to take its rightful place as the new elected Government.

To many, the chaotic five months in 2020 might have been somewhat erased by the positive developments of the following five years, during which a new President and government managed the nation’s first oil and gas earnings — though small — in ways that have touched every Guyanese, everywhere.

Some partisan critics will quietly admit the nation is experiencing its best infrastructural development ever and that the new national wealth is being shared with households, but will loudly claim they could and would do better — if elected.

The ruling alliance inherited one-sided energy agreements that only allow Guyana 14% of the biggest investing company’s earnings for at least the first 10 years, but it so well marshalled the new resources that the opposition can only promise to do next time, what it failed to do between 2015 and 2020.

However, all the online jimmy-flicks and desperate political manoeuvring aside, any fair assessment of voters’ responses to the ruling alliance and government’s performance will take into consideration the results of mid-term Local Government Elections and subsequent developments, that resulted in significant shifts in support from the opposition to the ruling alliance, whether through crossing-the-floor, or as seen through related demographic electoral shifts.

Guyanese voters are anxious to vote on Monday and each of the major contesting parties says they’ll win, plus with feelings this may be the hardest challenge for the ruling alliance.

But its core supporters and leadership, just days ahead of the final hour, seem to be rallying around the theme of Jimmy Cliff’s forever hit ‘The Harder They Come!’ 

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.