Editorial

A new low in this election campaign was registered on Saturday on the Essequibo Coast with the slinging up of effigies of the presidential and prime ministerial candidates of the APNU+AFC.

Never has ‘history’ loomed so large in a Guyanese election campaign.

Elections are in the air again, not just in this country but in many others, including Britain, Canada, Turkey and, somewhat prematurely, the United States.

Almost exactly three years ago, on the occasion of the 6th Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, we published an editorial opining that if President Barack Obama were re-elected in November of that year, that might herald “a new process of engagement” with Cuba.

The 2015 General and Regional Elections are now 25 days away and campaigns are in full swing.

The Summit of the Americas has presented the Caricom states and governments with two bites of the cherry, so to speak, as President Obama’s visit to Panama served as an inducement to visit Jamaica, so highlighting the current policy predicaments of many of the Region’s economies.

The loss of a child to a family, no matter what the circumstance, creates feelings of grief and desolation sufficiently acute as not to be easily assuaged by even the most heartfelt expressions of condolence.

During the turbulent sixties, the PPP often accused the private media and in particular the Chronicle of inflammatory reporting intended to provoke strife and mayhem.

Last Tuesday the political parties submitted their lists of candidates to Chief Election Officer Keith Lowenfield.

In recent years there has been no shortage of embarrassment within the higher reaches of American journalism as stories reported as fact, or original opinion, have been retracted after they turned out to be speculative – Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction – plagiarized, or complete fictions, as was the case with more than one writer at The New Republic and with Jayson Blair at The New York Times.

Whichever government is elected by the people of Guyana on May 11, it will undoubtedly face a huge challenge in working towards national reconciliation and tackling burning issues such as crime and corruption.

Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka once said that “The Nigerian people have always approached democracy and the elites have always turned them back.”

It would be hard to dispute that perhaps more than any other region of the world, the Middle East finds itself in a degree of turbulence that is now dominating the attention of the major Western powers, as well as affecting other countries, large and small.

A recent report from the Teaching Service Commission (TSC) paints a pretty disparaging picture of aspects of the country’s education system particularly as this relates to discipline amongst teachers, including some head teachers.

With nomination day looming tomorrow, the average voter has thus far been dealt an uninspiring and deficient hand by the main contestants.

In our Friday edition we carried a photo of two inmates of the Camp Street prison, one of whom was armed with a cutlass, about to attack a third in his cell.

The recent descent into vulgarity in the Trinidad and Tobago House of Representatives, with a minister of the People’s Partnership Government using the cloak of parliamentary privilege to cast the vilest of aspersions on opposition leader Dr Keith Rowley’s parentage and supposed attitude to women, represents a new low in Caribbean, Westminster-style political debates.

A report published in Monday’s edition of this newspaper which revealed that a 14-year-old girl, who was allegedly prostituted by her mother, had been sent to the New Opportunity Corps (NOC) for two years has drawn outrage from child rights advocates and rightly so.

As the statutory date for general elections draws near, the last election having been held in May of 2010, the political climate in Trinidad & Tobago seems to be heating up.

It would not have escaped the attention of careful observers that President Donald Ramotar’s promise of a highly educated work force, made to investors at last Thursday’s ceremony to mark the opening of Qualfon’s East Bank operations, came a matter of weeks before his government seeks to be returned to office at the May 11 general elections.