Dear Editor,
The views expressed in this missive are personal and should be seen through the eyes of an independent thinker, not one who is politically aligned.
With less than twenty (20) days before the General and Regional Elections (GRE) 2025, scheduled for September 1, 2025, international election observers have been in Guyana for the past three weeks. They have attended rallies, met with contesting parties, and “observed” developments on the ground. Yet, most of their visible focus seems fixed on Region 4, leaving the rest of the country to wonder whether their monitoring is truly national in scope or selectively applied.
This selective attention is troubling, especially given the history. After the 2020 GRE, multiple Observer Missions, including the European Union (EU) Mission, issued detailed reports with urgent recommendations: a clean voters’ list, the introduction of biometrics, reform of campaign financing, and a reshuffling of GECOM’s hierarchy to restore trust. These were not suggestions for “someday”, they were recommendations for immediate action before another election. Additionally, this very body held both separate and collective meetings after August 2, 2020, to discuss their findings and the way forward.
Five years have passed, and none of these critical reforms have been implemented. So why have these Observer bodies returned under the same flawed electoral framework they themselves condemned? Are they here to ensure a credible process, or to put a stamp of approval on an election that still carries the same vulnerabilities they previously identified?
It is worth recalling that in 2015, when the PPP/C lost the elections, Bharrat Jagdeo himself publicly demanded many of these same reforms, calling for a clean voters’ list, greater transparency at GECOM, and stronger safeguards to protect the integrity of the vote. Today, those demands have been abandoned, and his party governs under the same defective system they once criticised.
The Guyanese people are not fooled by symbolic presence or polite diplomacy. Observers must tell the public whether they will demand the reforms they once championed, or whether they will, once again, file reports that gather dust while our democracy remains at risk. The hypocrisy is glaring—Jagdeo now presides over the very flaws he once decried, and the observers who once called for change now seem content to watch from the sidelines. Both must answer to the people, because silence and inaction in the face of injustice is nothing short of complicity.
Yours truly,
Annette Ferguson
