Editorial

The British go to a general election four days before Guyanese do, and are engaged in as intense a campaign as any that has taken place here.

After a week in which the Baltimore riots have received round-the-clock coverage and analysis in the US media, it has become increasingly noticeable that many of the most intelligent comments on the situation are made by people who do not belong to the professional commentariat.

If one were to try to predict the electoral outcome on May 11, simply by surveying the social media and online blogs, one might be forgiven for believing that Guyanese are ready for change and that the APNU+AFC coalition is heading for victory.

Finally succumbing to unrelenting pressure from individuals and organisations inside and outside of Guyana, as well as the expressed distaste of foreign diplomats, President Donald Ramotar yesterday fired Minister of Health Dr Bheri Ramsaran.

Britain moves to parliamentary elections on May 7th amidst a tremendous uncertainty as to whether any of the political parties, in particular the Conservatives or Labour can gain a clear majority in the House of Commons.

Time was when the manner of last Saturday’s nine-wicket defeat suffered by the West Indies at the hands of England would have sent shock waves through the Caribbean; it would have brought forth a collective howl of outrage, a baying for blood, a boisterous, insistent demand that heads roll.

It must rank as one of the supreme ironies of this season that mere months after he headed a Commonwealth observer mission to the Sri Lankan General Elections, which by its very nature would have required evenhandedness and diplomatic skills, that former President Jagdeo has plunged headlong into the most virulent and partisan rabble-rousing on the political platform on behalf of himself and his party.

If it were not bad enough that Minister of Health Bheri Ramsaran insulted a woman in the most degrading way on Monday, in the process putting his utter contempt for the female sex as a whole on full public display, two days later he divested himself of similar remarks when addressing Regional Health Officers.

In September 1781, the British slave ship Zong set sail for Jamaica, with 442 Africans and 17 crew on board.

As last Friday’s editorial made clear, President Barack Obama, in seeing the error of the ways of previous US administrations and opting for the path of diplomacy, has opened a new chapter in his country’s relations with Cuba.

Minister of Health Dr Bheri Ramsaran’s disgraceful and horrendous abuse of rights activist Sherlina Nageer on the road outside the Whim Magistrate’s Court on Monday was revolting and inexcusable.

Any sense of euphoria experienced by President Dilma Rousseff and her Workers Party following her re-election as President of Brazil last year must now have vanished as large scale demonstrations broke out in protest against not simply sluggish economic growth, but what appear to be credible allegations of substantial corruption, associated with the state-owned oil company Petrobras, seemingly   beneficial to the Workers Party, prior to the elections.

The report earlier this month that several educators in the US State of Atlanta have been handed heavy prison sentences on racketeering charges linked to a widespread cheating racket at schools’ tests serves as a timely reminder that the region faces its own challenges with cheating at examinations, ranging from individual student concealment of answers to questions set for routine end-of-term/year examinations to more elaborate scams – including the advance acquisition of examination papers – that target the CXC examination.

A new low in this election campaign was registered on Saturday on the Essequibo Coast with the slinging up of effigies of the presidential and prime ministerial candidates of the APNU+AFC.

Never has ‘history’ loomed so large in a Guyanese election campaign.

Elections are in the air again, not just in this country but in many others, including Britain, Canada, Turkey and, somewhat prematurely, the United States.

Almost exactly three years ago, on the occasion of the 6th Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, we published an editorial opining that if President Barack Obama were re-elected in November of that year, that might herald “a new process of engagement” with Cuba.

The 2015 General and Regional Elections are now 25 days away and campaigns are in full swing.

The Summit of the Americas has presented the Caricom states and governments with two bites of the cherry, so to speak, as President Obama’s visit to Panama served as an inducement to visit Jamaica, so highlighting the current policy predicaments of many of the Region’s economies.

The loss of a child to a family, no matter what the circumstance, creates feelings of grief and desolation sufficiently acute as not to be easily assuaged by even the most heartfelt expressions of condolence.