President Carter might be able to influence Guyanese leaders to work together

TIMES INT'L

Dear Editor,

The news that former US President Jimmy Carter will be among the dozens of persons who will monitor the May 11 general elections certainly brings relief to the electorate – especially from the Opposition. The fear of rigging might be minimized.

However, it is the Government that invited Carter and his team to ensure that the elections are free. In fact, it was Carter who persuaded Desmond Hoyte to introduce certain measures in the 1992 general elections which was responsible for the demise of the PNC Administration.

The Carter Centre did not mount observer missions to the 2006 and 2011elections. The May 11 general elections will be their 100th election observation. The first was in Panama in 1989 during a hotly contested race that the Centre declared fraudulent. Since then, the Centre has observed elections in 38 countries.

Panama is now one of the most peaceful and unbiased countries, so much so that it successfully hosted the seventh Summit of the Americas earlier this month which was attended by US President Barack Obama and his Cuban counterpart, Raul Castro as well as more than 30 other world leaders.

It was the first time in 54 years that Cuba was represented at the Summit.

The last visit of the former US President was in 2004 at the invitation of Bharrat Jagdeo when Carter expressed grave disillusion with political gridlock, absence of shared governance and lack of real representation of Guyanese.

The United Nations (UN), the Organization of American States (OAS) the Commonwealth, the United Kingdom Branch of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA), the Caribbean Community (Caricom), and the Governments of India and South Africa will also send missions to observe the elections which is being hotly contested and a photo finish is expected.

Reports state that there are more than 567,000 registered voters out of a total population of 735,554. However other reports indicate that tens of thousands of registered voters live outside the jurisdiction.

Most Guyanese are hopeful that if the PPP/C or APNU/AFC fails to gain 50 per cent of the votes to form the Government, President Carter might be able to influence the leaders of the parties to work out a shared governance model in the interest of the Guyanese community.

Oscar Ramjeet

Related posts