OPINION: EU final elections report: fair and unfair sidestepped

Last Updated on Thursday, 20 November 2025, 22:14 by Writer

by GHK Lall

The European Union (EU) electoral observer mission has submitted its final report for the 2025 elections in Guyana. The EU is pleased to say that the elections were “peaceful” and “well run.” Congratulations to all local hands that made that possible. The EU, however, balked at pronouncing the same elections ‘free’, preferred to bypass any offering on whether it was fair or unfair. The fact that the observer mission has an issue, is resistant, to saying ‘fair’ or ‘unfair’ on these elections does say something, much of many things.

If the people who were close to the elections hesitate, have an objection, to taking a position on fair or unfair, then what is left? I think the regular Guyana elections, with their mysteries, electoral mathematics, and clever narratives are all up for any manner of dissection. The elections could not be free. Not when the We Invest in Nationhood team was subject to one barbarism after another, and in full public view. If they were not free in that respect only, then where does that leave thoughts of unfairness? When foreigners were bussed into elections’ sites, as if some covert operation, then the issue of fair or unfair takes on rising volume. If nothing to hide, nothing that is not on the up and up, then those special police and reception arrangements are unneeded. There is hiding in plain sight, and there is the EU carefully circling around questions about fair and unfair. It did give a clue or two, though.

Guyanese had heard closer to the elections from the same EU teams about ‘incumbency advantage’. Now, it is emphasized and reinforced, ‘undue advantage’ which I take the liberty of interpreting as ‘unfair advantage.’ How so? State media manipulation, state resources misuse, state misconduct, and the excesses of the state mafia are all known and well-worn. If those can be, not quietly, but via blatant public disdain, misused for unfair incumbency advantage, then it should not be too demanding to discern what went on away from public eyes.

The long-withheld census numbers hold some clues, provide understandings, of where the deficits were, and what steps had to be taken to compensate for them, so as to succeed. From a secret census report to the fact that voter busloads had to be kept a secret until arrival at polling places. I urge Guyanese to do the impossible. That is, suspend emotion and partisanship for a moment, and face this connection in a clinical manner. There has to be some value to the incumbent government to hide a census report that is now a couple of years old, overdue. Why was that necessary? Next, the EU has to remind Guyanese in its final 2025 elections report about the priority recommendations that it made in 2020. When those have been all dumped into the wastepaper basket, then I venture to state that fair can never be part of the conclusion, and what is unfair floats freely before all citizens. To disregard is to prepare what’s unfair.

Campaign financing recommendation is given lip service. Drug smuggling is a huge problem, and gold smuggling not far behind. When campaign financing donations are made up of clean, traceable money, then all politicians and all political groups would push each other aside to demand genuine and robust campaign financing rules. When neither the PPP Govt, nor the PNC opposition, nor WIN, nor others can stand straight and speak straight about real campaign financing reforms and real rules, then fair is thrown through the elections window. Unfair remains coiled under the bed, like a snake, and waiting to pounce. When state media and state assets are marshalled by the incumbents for unfair advantage, i.e. to steamroll Guyanese minds, and still there is the expectation for the EU to touch on whether the 2025 elections were fair or unfair that is really asking too much of these invited guests.

If the EU were to declare that the Guyana elections of 2025 were fair, the PPP Govt would get to crow jubilantly, and there would be no end to such joy broadcast left, right, and center. If the EU were to pronounce the same 2025 elections as unfair, then the opposition would be equipped to run with that development, with no one knowing where that could lead. There is still oil to produce and ship. There are still other investors and their interests in Guyana’s prospects, hence the best course of action was embraced by the EU. Stand far from the furnace of fair and unfair, and let Guyanese think for themselves for once, figure out what went on in their last elections just this once.