Observing… the elections

In Guyana “Election Observers” is an established tradition – domestic and foreign folks who “observe” our voting process to report any hanky-panky observed. As with almost everything related to elections, it started with Burnham doing the dirty in every election he was involved in!!! The man didn’t just write the book on the subject; he revised the book at every opportunity he got – meaning EVERY single election!! Your Eyewitness thinks the most pungent report by an Observer team was for the 1980 elections when the British Parliamentary Observer team headed by Lord Chitness declared the elections were “more crooked than barbed wire”!! Observer Teams are to be distinguished from “Investigative Teams”, such as the one by the UK’s Granada Television that showed horses registered in England as “overseas voters” for the PNC’s inaugural 1968 elections rigging!!
One observer that’s been with us from the very first “free and fair” elections in 1992 – and in fact helped bring about that happy circumstance – is the Carter Center, founded by former US president Jimmy Carter. And they’re baaack!! They’d been made persona non grata by the APNU/AFC coalition during their 2020 rigging attempt when they were denied re-entry into Guyana to observe the recount of the ballots – after Mingo had done the dirty with his spreadsheets and (soiled) bedsheets!! As is their wont (fancy, eh?), they’ve already surveyed the lay of the (electoral) land, so to speak, and issued their findings.
They concluded the Opposition’s creating a tempest in their (small) teacup by bloviating about the OLE being “bloated” – even though they know fully well that its comparatively large size is due to the constitutional stipulation that registered Guyanese citizens living abroad can’t be removed!! Barbados has the same situation but decided they don’t wanna disenfranchise overseas citizens – who contribute generously to the elections war chests!! APNU/AFC could’ve introduced the enabling legislation when they were in office – but didn’t!! The Center, however, has pointed out that the state-owned media don’t give equal coverage to the Opposition. Your Eyewitness’ view is that while that’s certainly true, it’s quite irrelevant since all Guyanese know the same situation existed when the now opposition was in office. As such, they don’t give much mind – in any!! – to the state media!!
Another big observer mission that’s been with us for the long haul is the OAS. This year its team is again being led by former Jamaican PM Bruce Golding – who was here for the 2020 fun and games!! He earned the ire of the PNC and was publicly cussed out by “Lil Joe” Harmon after he told the OAS general council, “I have never seen a more transparent effort to alter the results of an election.”
Let the games begin pronto!!

…WIN
To say your Eyewitness is looking CLOSELY at the WIN campaign is putting it mildly!! That’s because it’s being conducted in a vacuum left by the PNC – call it APNU or what you may! – and the AFC. Look at the persons that WIN has been attracting – these are almost to a man and woman folks who would’ve been in the latter camps. So if we want to understand the so-called Blue Wave, we should examine the implosions in the PNC and AFC.
And implosions they are!! What else can you call the literal exodus of second-tier leaders from the PNC to the PPP? That created such a whoooosh you could see the degutting in real time. That THEY did the same to the AFC by not just rejecting a coalition with them or their leader but snagging their PM candidate didn’t change anything cause the AFC had already become Dead Meat!!
So WIN expanded into this vacuum – but will disappear when a new PNC leadership emerges after Sep 1st!!

…actual voting
The Opposition screamed the government wanted cell phones in voting booths, so persons who’re been “helped” would have to take pics of their ballots.
So what now that GECOM prohibited cell phones?? They’ll scream, “GECOM is independent”??