As the elections saga /drama continues to unfold, its by-product of emotional strain has begun to have significant effects on our personal relationships. Lifelong friendships have been temporarily suspended (with no positive hopes of their revival), or permanently terminated. As misinformation and propaganda swirl all over the modern day phenomenon of social media, we can only fathom the damage being inflicted on the next generation of voters, the current high school population.
On the 3rd April, almost three months ago, the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Dr Keith Rowley, in an interview with journalist Elizabeth Williams made the observation, “I am getting a feeling that this is not going to end well…I hope I am wrong but that feeling…I am not having a good feeling…I have this unsettling feeling [that grows] with every passing day.” Dr Rowley appeared to be deeply saddened as he uttered those fateful words.
Speaking as the Prime Minister and a Caribbean person, Rowley stated that he was deeply concerned that the elections had become a “court house matter” and CARICOM was being vilified. Rowley was a member of the CARICOM team, (invited by President Granger to mediate in the elections crisis) which met with the leaders of the 11 parties that had contested the elections and had facilitated meetings with President Granger and Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo.
“We thought we had an agreement from the leadership to abide by the recount…they said send us a team of scrutineers…the next thing we knew was that presence of CARICOM, by invitation, became accusations against CARICOM and a legal challenge so we had to get out of there,” Dr Rowley noted, while adding that the community was basically a defendant in the court, and he was not sure where it stood.
On Monday, 6th April, Dr Rowley was once again addressing the media on Guyana’s elections, following the previous day’s decision by the Guyana Court of Appeal which had found that it was illegal for CARICOM to supervise a recount of the ballots cast in the elections. He stated that he had found the court’s ruling disturbing since they had agreed in the signed aide-memoire to set-up a high level team to supervise the recount. He added that the second to last sentence of the agreement had stated that the CARICOM team would have been working under the auspices of Gecom and “would not engage themselves in the actual counting of ballots. Their presence is to ensure that the recount is done in a free, fair, transparent and credible manner.”
Speaking in the Trinidad and Tobago Parliament on 8th May, Dr Rowley explained why his country’s Elections Chief was not involved the recount process then in progress in Guyana.
“There were very serious accusations made against CARICOM and it was my view and the view of this Government that…that the Chief Election Officer of Trinidad and Tobago ought not to be in that situation at any time to be accused in that way – in a CARICOM country – so we did not send back our Election Officer there because we want to preserve our pristine position in these matters of the conduct of free and fair elections.”
As we are all aware, the CARICOM supervised recount has taken place, and the CARICOM team has filed its report endorsing the results of the recount, which have not been warmly received by the incumbents, who have opted instead to endorse the convoluted results presented by Gecom’s CEO, Mr Lowenfield.
What will be the regional body’s position on our current state of flux? Will CARICOM issue a strong statement? Will the leaders propose that the Granger-led Coalition accept the decision of the Caribbean Court of Justice? Will they vote to suspend Guyana? Will they table a motion to move CARICOM Headquarters out of Guyana?
As we await word from CARICOM, Dr. Rowley’s words continue to echo in our ears, “This is not going to end well.”
