Having decided that more good than harm can come from the presence of more than one international election observer group for our April 28 elections, Prime Minister Stuart Young has now invited the Commonwealth and the Carter Center to play such a role alongside original Caricom invitees.
Caricom has already replied positively to the request, and I understand a process is already in train to constitute a team, develop its terms of reference, and initiate deployment at the collective expense of member states – as is usually the case.
Unfortunately, publicly expressed doubt as to the bona fides of Caricom involvement has had the effect of devaluing an act of regional fraternalism, denying the remarkable nature of the grouping’s past record, and fictionalising the extent to which any individual Caricom official is typically and influentially engaged in the execution of the mandates of observer groups.
There are other reasons advanced in the public domain which, for me, are a source of much shame, and will not be addressed on this forum today.
The suggestion of potentially dishonourable conduct also casts defamatory slurs on past missions that have performed creditably in numerous Caribbean countries, including here, over the years. Only last week, associate member state Curacao hosted a Caricom electoral mission.
There are several other countries that have activated such support, including those that have experienced highly problematic processes and outcomes.
It is a service Caricom has provided since 1997, when an observer group was deployed in Guyana.
Like other international guidelines for such teams, the main duties involve observing the entire process, including the prevailing socio-political climate, monitoring election day activities, and observing and assessing the political environment following declaration of results.
Commonwealth guidelines developed in 1991 and revised in 2018 (it has been conducting observer missions since 1967) also make specific reference to a variety of rights and responsibilities.
These include scrutiny of the registration, nominations, and election days processes, the conduct of campaigns, and the behaviour of contestants and their parties. There is also a wide spectrum of other responsibilities that have to do with the communication of political messages, the neutrality of officials, ballot secrecy, and the conditions under which votes are cast with a special eye on the elderly and disabled.
Unlike Caricom, where member states are invited to submit nominees for participation—usually elections officials and people with observer experience—the Commonwealth accesses a wider variety of skills directly, and mostly without reference to the governments of countries to which team members belong.
Additionally, a request for a Commonwealth mission, according to the revised guidelines of 2018, “can emanate from a variety of official sources, including the Head of Government, Minister of Foreign Affairs or Chair of the election management body.” The Commonwealth Secretariat secures the funding for the exercise.
In the case of the Carter Center, once invited, its team “must be generally welcomed by the major political forces and/or accredited by electoral authorities” in order to proceed.
These are just three of several creditable sources of international vigilance over electoral processes. There are others, including the Organisation of American States (OAS), that have been active in the region.
One of the other things observer groups do is to examine the degree to which a wide variety of stakeholders, including political parties, business, labour, NGOs, and the media, play roles in promoting and monitoring sound electoral practices.
I am spending some time on the role of election observers and the bodies that manage them because it is important that people understand what to expect from them. I have been an advocate for a greater role for media in providing at least basic guidance on such matters and not remain content to regurgitate outlandish claims.
There is also a role for academia in this and I am noting the paucity of adequately researched material and general instruction, even on the work of observer groups.
Additionally, following our 2020 elections, there were three main recommendations from the Caricom group. These include campaign finance reform, digital transformation (!), and accessibility issues regarding the elderly and disabled.
The “observer” role thus extends to domestic spaces in the years between elections. Civil society vigilance is equally important to help guard the guards. But it’s a duty we citizens and ordinary folk all appear to have abandoned.
Editor’s note: Wesley Gibbings has covered numerous regional elections and trained journalists on election coverage throughout the Caribbean and in Fiji and served as a Commonwealth observer in Sierra Leone in 2023. He has also co-edited a manual for Caribbean journalists on coverage of elections.
