…for elections?
The Carter Center made an invaluable contribution to Guyana and Guyanese back in 1992 when after two years of “behind the scene” and “on the scene” work, they were able to shepherd through the first “free and fair” elections in 28 years. Fast forward another twenty eight years and we’re once again in need of some help to facilitate another such elections. This weekend, the Carter Center’s back cause clearly, we haven’t been able to get our act (electorally) in all that time.
There’s hope in some local quarters that the Center will once again be able to perform its legerdemain on this go-around, even though its team leader says they’re only here to “observe” our preparations. Back in 1990, when elections were due after the PNC’s massive 1985 rigging, Opposition parties had done yeoman work to lobby the Carter Center to offer their elections monitoring services. But if the truth be told, it wasn’t so much “legerdemain” than a shift in US foreign policy towards Guyana that really made the Carter Center’s intervention effective.
We don’t have to rehearse the US’ objection to Jagan on ideological grounds in the 1960s that resulted in them orchestrating the PNC of Burnham’s taking of power. The PPP was seen as affecting the US strategic interest in controlling its “backyard”. It was the fall of the USSR in 1989 that made the US administration take a second look at the question of the PNC’s legitimacy vis a vis the PPP. Their Marxist slant was now seen as irrelevant to global politics.
When lumpen elements organised by Hamilton Green stormed elections headquarters as the election results showed the PPP ahead, it took a call from the White House to President Hoyte to have him call in the troops to make them stand down. The point your Eyewitness wants to make is if the Carter Center will become a broker for free and fair elections once again, it will be the call of the present US administration of Donald Trump.
The question, once again, is what is the US strategic interest at this time in Guyana and which party – the PPP or the PNC – do they see as best protecting that interest to cause them to engage into the process. Economic interest occasioned by ExxonMobil’s massive oil strikes are, of course, at the top of any list. But there is also our proximity and facility to Venezuela, where Maduro has been stymying the US administration’s call for a democratic regime change after they seized assets of US firms, including ExxonMobil’s.
…for cheaper consumer goods?
Well, the Trini conglomerate Ansa McAL has opened up what they call a “Massy Mega” in Guyana. They’ll be selling groceries and consumer goods at close to wholesale prices – imitating Costco and BJ’s in the US. Winston Jordan bigged up the opening as a massive infusion of Foreign Domestic Investment (FDI) into the Guyanese economy.
He took time out to “throw shade” at the Opposition Leader for calling out some foreign businessmen but wasn’t possessed of the testicular fortitude to call the name of the man who used to be his boss in the same Ministry he now heads. But your Eyewitness has a couple of questions for Jordan. Does he really think that opening bigger stores to sell imported consumer merchandise to Guyanese is really “developing” Guyana?? Who’ll be buying these consumer goods when his Government has actually reduced the cash circulating in the economy by tossing thousands into the streets and taxing the remaining working stiffs to such G$90Billions out of their pockets??
…in CPL slugfest
Your Eyewitness is still breathless at more than 485 runs being scored at Warner Park in St Kitts the other night by the Tallawahs and the Patriots.
He swears the referee got whiplash from following the ball over the stands!!