As we bid farewell to former US President Jimmy Carter, all Guyana should never forget it was President Carter and the Carter Center which played a pivotal role in helping to restore democracy, ending the PNC dictatorship in 1992. In 2020, President Carter’s grandson Jason Carter was on the same flight with me going out of Guyana and in chatting with him, I had the pleasure of thanking him for what his grandpa did in saving Guyana, and what he the grandson was now doing in heading the Carter Center’s observer team, as the PNC was returning to its old ways and trying to rig again. Many of us fought for the restoration of democracy in various ways, but the Carter Center’s involvement in brokering free and fair elections and counting of votes at the place of poll was the tipping point for change. (My wife and I were the only two people retrenched at our school under the guise that we were PPP people. The PNC government had done a national “retrenchment” exercise across the country to purge schools of “dissidents”- people they perceive as Opposition to their dictatorship). In 1992, I had contacted a Dr. Robert Pastor, who was head of the Carter Center, volunteering to help with the observer team. He responded by letter indicating they could not use Guyanese on the team.
President Carter will be remembered for being in the GECOM building when PNC hoodlums were pelting up the building. His presence in Guyana during the election was what saved a bigger riot and derailment of the democratic process.
In tribute to President Carter and the Carter Centre, I call on the President to keep his promise and honour all the “Guardians of Democracy” who guarded ballot boxes during the recount and stood up against the PNC’s failed attempt to rig the 2020 elections and plunging the nation into deep trauma for five months. President Carter’s passing gives us the opportunity to reflect that it takes people to rise up and take a stand for the preservation of democracy in Guyana. As we head into elections in 2025, who knows the PPP might need us again to keep vigil, and it might need all of those who wrote letters constantly. Dr. Vishnu Bisram, Robin Singh and I were the top three letter writers during those five months. The PNC has never apologized for the 28 years of rigging, and it has never apologized for the attempted rigging in 2020, when its supporters had controlled the key positions and levers of power at GECOM, and it thought they could engineer a rigging.
The twenty-eight years of Burnhamism were the closest we came to apartheid in Guyana. Our country was pauperised, our people fled to every little island in Caricom and in countries across the world. Our culture and politics had become deformed, and vestiges of that era still remain. Thank you, President Jimmy Carter. You have done God’s will in helping to save Guyana! Rest in peace, dear friend of Guyana!
Sincerely,
Dr. Jerry Jailall
Civil Society Advocate
