OPINION: Carter Center: from PPP guests to PPP football

Last Updated on Monday, 25 August 2025, 23:06 by Writer

By GHK Lall

Say three words ‘international elections’ observers’ and there is no one in Guyana that can blow a trumpet like the PPP. Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis combined to blast out a soaring, unmatchable PPP crescendo. Awesome. Then more awe that the Carter Center blew its own bugle – ting nah regulah in these 2025 elections racing from stormy to catastrophe. VP Jagdeo, the PPP main sax man spoke of “glaring omissions” in the Carter Center prelim document. He hit a high note. Then a low note followed on the Corentyne road. A Guyana Police Force (GPF) stop-and-search exercise. For a number plate that was hazy and a tint so dark that even the darkness that has descended on Guyana was not enough to conceal it. The Carter Center released its report and about 24 hours later, the GPF has its own report filed: go to hell. An orchestrated retort? Or random GPF action? The GPF has its own culture of street shakedowns. The question before the democratically-minded, and remnant of honest, decent citizens, was whether Adventure, Corentyne represented a PPP shakedown without giving a damn who sees what, says what.

The GPF commander was gracious enough to sound his own clarion call: political instructions? Not here. Not today. Not with this cop. Delightful and reassuring, to keep matters civil. But if the GPF were to conduct one half-hour countrywide sweep for suspect shades of tint, there would be no traffic woes in Guyana. Yessir! The roads would be that empty so quickly, and so lonely afterwards. And, if the GPF were ever to get serious about obscure number plates, then the crime stats in the three counties wouldn’t have to be polished and repolished. Traffic gone, crime down, down, down. But there were the WIN people who came in for somewhat honorable mention in The Carter Center pre-election report now subjected to a derail-and-deny tactic that is as old as politics in this town. From banks to bands of men in police uniform. Somebody should reach back in time and to wherever Cheddi Jagan is and ask him for a comment. Better still, there is Excellency Donald Ramotar and Mr. GECOM, Clement Rohee, who should have their own encyclopedia of police war stories to share.

International elections observers! International elections observers are coming! That’s the cry from none other, none louder, than the PPP. Now, just check how contemptuous the same ruling party is of The Carter Center and its report. Report as much as pleases. The PPP will retaliate any ole way that it is pleasing to do. Stop the WIN man. Slowdown his progress. Share a wobbly story about number plate and tint. It inspires that members of the GPF were so eagle-eyed that they could spot what looked like darker-than-allowed-tint in the darkness. Now that is policing. Now that is also the PPP saying to The Carter Center, and the hordes of international elections’ observers, take observations and reports and stick it where the sun doesn’t shine. I put the total disdain of the PPP for the whole lot of the invited (yes, government invited teams of international elections observers) under the high beams. That GPF stop and search incident involving Azruddin Mohamed at Adventure, Corentyne is the universal symbol of scorn captured and conveyed in a middle finger isolated, extended, and upraised. Take that! And stuff it!

International intellectual observers are the guests of the PPP Government. If this is how invited and honored guests are treated, the world shouldn’t need any clues of how a corrupt and lawless government operates with domestics. When the Corentyne stop-and-search could occur when international elections observers are here, what does that say about when the world is minding its own business, not caring about what is going on in Guyana? And, when the government can be so arrogant (and ignorant) to conduct itself in this manner before the elections, then there isn’t much left to the imagination about what it may have planned for during the actual elections exercise on September 1st. And afterwards. If anything, the PPP maestros are nothing but thorough. No loose ends. No loose lips. No loser of a competitor allowed to snatch the prize.

Finally, reasonable men would have played their shaky hand better. That is, lay low. So that Guyanese get a firm grasp of what is at work here, I implore them to try these two situations extracted from real-life. Ever try speaking rationally to people in the middle of a frenzy that devours them? And, ever tried calming a drunk or one in the throes of an addiction by other than strong liquids? It is trying to communicate with the deaf, the dangerous, and sometimes, the deadly. There’s the 2025 PPP writ large.