Election Money

Among the noteworthy developments arising out of last week’s General Election, and the run-up to it, is the fact that despite the prior fuss over the need for independent, international monitoring of the process, very little has since been said about the work of two observer missions in the country.

Such a shortcoming has been observable across the political spectrum in the post-election phase. Instead, “we won” and “we lost” have been the two dominant narratives signified by cheers and tears for which first-past-the-post electoral arrangements are widely known.

The numerous passionate public appeals, correspondence, memoranda, and meetings to ensure external monitoring now seem like distant echoes in a fast-flowing tributary of public commentary and contemplation.

First, the frantic calls met by the open resistance of those in charge, then acceptance and muted surrender, to public slander on the presumed primordial instincts of a Caribbean team.

Then emerged the support of the 56-member Commonwealth – still, to some, not representative of “international” scrutiny, as if a team from Malta, Dominica, Jamaica, Papua New Guinea, Maldives, and Guyana, with support from a UK-based Secretariat had not met the basic features of geographical spread.

A larger 12-member Caricom group comprising electoral officials and experts from eight countries did concurrent work. And, by the way, the government of T&T was not responsible for financing these activities.

The focus post-election, so far, has been almost exclusively on the constituting of a new political administration, attending to internal convulsions, and the challenge of making good on extravagant promises.

In the process, barely concealed partisan posturing has turned to both open revulsion and gratuitous applause - the agenda for change consequently located along a spectrum of the impossible and the eminently possible.

Thankfully, there are now independent experts, with no distinguishable dogs in the recently completed race, to dissect the details with data and evidence.

Meanwhile, as has been the case in the past, international observers have come, they’re seen, and they have reported (at least preliminarily) with some reminders and guidance on getting things right the next time around.

I need to remind us of at least three issues placed on the table for consideration by the Caricom Observer team of 2020 which closely align with the observations of the Commonwealth team of 2015, and again in 2025.

These include campaign finance reform, digital transformation in matters related to elections, and accessibility issues regarding the elderly and disabled.

It should not have taken COG Chair, Evarist Bartolo of Malta to remind us of the 10-year-old recommendation to “prioritise this process” of electoral campaign finance reform.

For, even at that time, the issue was nothing new to us. The first report of a Joint Select Committee (JSC) appointed in November 2014 to “propose a legislative framework to govern the financing of election campaigns … ” had already been submitted in 2015.

Three elected MPs of 2025, on both sides of the House, are among the signatories to that 10-year-old report which proposed, among other things: “limits on private campaign financing of political parties and candidates in order to promote fair competition during elections and reduce incentives for corruption and undue influence in politics.”

The issue gained traction for some time, including consideration of an appropriate “independent and professional regulatory body” to monitor and consider sanctions for breaches.

The EBC was favourably considered by the JSC, and an amendment to the Representation of the People Act was tabled in parliament for debate in 2020. It included the idea of a National Election Campaign Fund, in part to address the question of private funding and the potential for the negative impacts identified by the 2015 JSC report.

It was suggested that most major actors were supportive of the kinds of reforms that would not currently have us in a state of confusion regarding the identities of “financiers” of a brief but intense election campaign with visible spend in the millions and millions of dollars.

I have suggested in the past that the main beneficiaries of campaign spend should also be among the entities for which mandatory disclosure is a requirement. These include both private and state media – who almost all earn substantial revenues from electoral campaigns.

Meanwhile, we have political parties that built their campaigns around the notion of transparency and accountability – key attributes of responsible governance – and who now must give legislative teeth to their stated commitment to such values.

It should not require impartial international monitors to remind us of this. It should happen as a natural outcome of political intent expressed on the political platform. Let’s see how that goes.

Our Wounded Civilisations

The gracious pronouncements of party leaders Dr Keith Rowley and Kamla Persad-Bissessar in defeat and in victory respectively Monday night was a welcome, comforting experience at the end of a brief but bruising election campaign.

Even so, the injuries sustained, even by celebrants, will require that we pay much closer attention to the way we engage such contests in the future.

A few years ago, I met a woman during a Caribbean assignment. She was a divorcee with two adult children resulting from a particularly abusive marriage. She told me that several times after being attacked, she awoke in a hospital bed.

There were short-term and lasting physical and emotional injuries – some of them evident in the tone and manner of her narrative and behaviour, and in visible features of her physical appearance.

Throughout the period of abuse there was little to suggest that things had gone badly wrong. Everybody, including the attacker and child witnesses, were putting on a pretty good show.

The conversation I had with that person came to mind last week when a colleague said it appeared that every time we have an election in T&T a period of emotional “recovery” is required, even by the declared winners.

I used the word “convalescence.” Not the paralysing type that brings silence and inaction, but of the variety that generates a facade of normalcy. I thought, for example, of the numbness expected to greet racist remarks, insults, disinformation, defamation, and other forms of normalised verbal violence.

In other Caribbean territories I know well, emotional cover is also required against the threat and experience of actual physical violence. Instances of this are few and far between here, but there is professional guidance that does not make a sharp distinction between the body and the mind.

To reinforce this, my friend recommended I read The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk. It’s not my kind of reading so I reluctantly listened to one portion of the audio version.

The writer’s basic assertion is that “trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers’ capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust.”

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) also appears to have collective, communal characteristics, in the sense that populations undergo processes of denial, guilt, and pain while putting on a splendid show in the face of internal convulsions – much like the wounded lady.

We occupy a Caribbean space in which the injured abound. For instance, psycho-social wounds persist over 40 years after the fall of the People’s Revolutionary Government in Grenada. Who can also deny that Jamaica’s political violence between 1970 and 1980 (more than 800 people were killed in the 1980 elections) has not left scars requiring continued treatment?

Guyana’s decades-long political trauma spanning the late 1950s and into the 1980s remains evident in the tenor of the political discourse and actions of 2025. There are open wounds left unattended after many years. Examine closely, for example, current convulsions in Tuschen and Georgetown. Any “recovery” clearly remains incomplete.

In T&T, we can begin the comparisons years before 1970 and 1990, but much has already been said about the hangovers from those dramatic events that remain today.

We have not had the death and physical traumas of some of our neighbours, but our minds and therefore our bodies, have kept the score. At election time, some politicians and their supporters ensure the scoreboard keeps ticking.

Head of the Council for Responsible Political Behaviour, Dr Bishnu Ragoonath recently reported on  “racially charged and derogatory language, character attacks, excessive negative campaigning, and the removal or defacement of opponents’ campaign materials” when he described breaches of its code during campaign 2025.

This is the limit of the Council’s responsibilities, much like the requirements of the Sixth Schedule to the Representation of the People’s Act which prescribes a Code of Conduct for Political Parties to “regulate the behaviour of members and office holders of political parties, aspiring candidates, candidates and their supporters, promote good governance and eradicate political malpractices.”

It is not within the scope of either the Council, which operates as an institutional check on political behaviour, or the Code to monitor psycho-social impacts. That’s our brief as citizens.

It is however the responsibility of the main political actors who provide the ammunition and triggers that routinely take us to the A&E each time we are required to engage electoral decision-making. This year has been no exception. We must endeavour to put an end to this. Monday night signalled some promise – through both cheers and tears.

The Media Challenge

Last Wednesday, the Media Institute of the Caribbean (MIC) convened a virtual “conversation” on regional media coverage of elections. The panellists included Dr Steve Surujbally, a former chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) who has served on election observer missions all over the world.

Alongside Dr Surujbally was decorated Jamaican journalist, elections observer and former Editor-in-Chief of the Jamaica Gleaner, Wyvolyn Gager. Then there was T&T-based Saint Lucian journalist, Peter Richards, who has covered numerous Caribbean elections.

The background to this exercise was the fact that this year as many as ten elections are likely to be held in full and associate Caricom member states. Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) was the first to go to the polls on Feb 7 and the Progressive National Party (PNP) maintained its hold on power there.

Next up, on February 26, was Anguilla where the Anguilla United Front (AUF) under now first-time female premier, Cora Richardson-Hodge, turned the tables on the incumbent Anguilla Progressive Movement (APM).

Curaçao, where there is proportional representation (PR), held its elections on March 21 and Gilmar Pisas was returned as prime minister. On the immediate horizon are T&T on April 28 and Suriname (PR) on May 25. Not far behind are Guyana (PR), Jamaica, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and we do not know what will happen in Haiti.

Such a backdrop was useful to declare since there are unique, interesting features of each country’s electoral system and practice requiring clinical dissection, and lessons to be learned regarding media coverage of encounters there.

Though media performance was the main focus, we spent some valuable time fleshing out the view that there are systemic issues associated with our electoral systems that do not do not always produce outcomes of the greatest democratic value. I will explain what I mean by that in a while.

Relatedly, it was argued that “voter apathy” had become a recurring fixture of elections, in part because of a lack of confidence in the ability of the process to reflect collectively fashioned views on our countries’ developmental paths.

Accounting in part for this is the fact that our political parties have been efficient at identifying symptoms of our dysfunction and not always focused on key structural, causative factors.

Additionally, there does not exist a perfect electoral system and informed national discussions focused on fixing key elements are needed.

Yes, this is not a new concern, though we generally operate pretty tight systems with high levels of institutional accountability and responsibility in most instances.

The political organisations that mobilise for electoral contests should find ways of integrating the prospects for change, if required, as part of their platform talk.

Moreso, journalists should better acquaint themselves with such matters so as to expand the coverage of campaigns and the entire elections process beyond routinised claims and counterclaims and outlandish promises.

For journalists, elections should also increasingly be recognised as a process and not as a singular event confined to campaigns comprising claims and counterclaims, gratuitous doses of defamation and character-assassination, spectacularly contrived defections, and the disingenuous insertion of personal taste and views into expert and reportorial narratives.

There is a concern that while there is abundant focus on some discrete components of the electoral cycle that begin and end with announcement of an election date and declaration of a result, there are important features of what happens between elections often ignored or inadequately addressed.

Additionally, with voter education being a key output of election reporting, there are parts of the process that are too often neglected or under-reported outside of isolated fiascos associated with them.

Focusing on these areas requires critical and knowledgeable journalistic attention to existing electoral and representative systems and their impact on the sustenance of democratic conditions.

For example, does the first-past-the-post constituency system produce outcomes truly representative of “the will of the people?” What becomes of the 39% or 42%, or even the 10% or 15% of the electorate that did not support the victorious politicians?

Every time the T&T constitution is being discussed, this comes up in the context of the PR option – too often minus thoughts on the desired version of the system. Guyana and Suriname offer different approaches next door and there are others elsewhere.

No time for all this now though. In under one week from now, we shall see where slick and shabby campaigns, and predictable narratives have taken us. The journalists who have contained their personal enthusiasm have played their important parts, but hopefully in the knowledge that much, much more is expected.

Some important differences

Let’s face it: Most of us simply want the things around us to work properly – nature, people, machines, institutions, systems. To the extent that we can speak about an “average citizen”, we can safely conclude that such a cohort would rather get on with life, its joys and its challenges, and to do so safely, in good health, and with as few inconveniences as possible.

There should also be the means to participate in society devoid of significant need when it comes to shelter and other economic, social, and cultural rights.

It is therefore totally understandable that a country’s power arrangements, in all their manifestations, enter the equation at critical points of such aspirations. It is also natural, that in the cut and thrust of election campaigning these matters would dominate the public discourse. Mind you, we are not alone in this.

In the Caribbean, this year for example, there are likely to be as many as nine national elections, including the scheduled but highly unlikely encounter in Haiti. In every instance, the meeting of basic needs dominates the public discourse, as it should.

Pay close attention, as I have, to those just past and to the others to come, including ours, and you will recognise vast areas of common concern, together with all the familiar assets and liabilities of our heritage of political culture and practice.

We can discuss at another time, if you wish, the colonial legacy and the extent to which we ought to be able to begin taking responsibility for ourselves as citizens and as polities.

Even so, there is a declining yet significant number of people in our countries for whom solutions and progress are viewed solely within the context of what the political institutions of their own durable private/tribal choice or taste can achieve. Alternatives are pre-emptively discarded as unrealistic options.

This is also despite the fact that in most instances there is little to separate the prescriptions of competing parties. There is no fundamental philosophy to distinguish them from each other.

Everywhere, there is the lure of the theocratic state, for example, leaving unfinished business when it comes to key areas of human rights. It is amazing the harmony on LGBT+ rights, capital punishment, the subservience of the state under the powers of the Church, among others.

There is, as well, psycho-social reliance on authoritarian behaviours both by the ruled and the rulers. Hence, non-resolution of important rules of the governance game including the separation of powers, and the degree to which post-colonial thought remains entrenched in our constitutions in the letter of savings clauses or after the spirit of unchallenged power.

This makes solutions-driven decision-making declarations rather illusory - “fixing” things expressed purely as abstruse and deceptive expressions of essentially immovable personal or collective preference. It’s more difficult to conceal such a condition nowadays – that fixing things is an exclusive tribal preserve.

That said, there remains a lot to be done, and a long history of shortcomings. Digital transformation in both the private and public sectors is sluggish and insufficiently deep.

There is, understandably, a lot of emphasis on public service developments because people simply do not have the options that are otherwise available within private enterprise.

But tell me the difference at the counter of a bank or insurance company and the one facing you at any state agency. Be honest.

Burdensome business processes in the private sector easily match inefficiencies in the state domain. Serious people routinely recognise the digital facades. Make no mistake about it, these two areas of concern –  the digital lag and archaic business processes - are evident across the board.

We can all also speak about depravities in private health, whatever the undoubted and tragic deficiencies in our system of socialised medicine. There is however little in the public domain to distinguish differences in approaches to fixing these things by those who claim superior credentials.

That said, and back to the politics, there are behaviours that ought to determine important, albeit narrow distinctions. Actions executed and things said at times of deepest, darkest societal need, for instance. The resort to ad hominem attack over reasoned argument. And, of course, a notion of the genetic superiority of one group over another.

These are the things, even above the transactional aches, that should make a difference in the end. When choices need to be made.

 

New and old T&T election business

Stick around long enough in the media business during election season, and you’ll recognise the substance in the old, biblical saying that there’s “nothing new under the sun.”

Our elections repeat familiar themes: party defections, propaganda (aka fake news), mysterious financial flows for campaigning, criminal charges, unethical behaviour, race-baiting, bribery, grossly over-inflated/unrealistic promises, and endless finger-pointing. The methods may change, but the plot stays essentially the same.

Even party rebels have become entirely predictable as an election story. Poll the generations and detect variances in “wow” factors regarding the party “switcheroos” - a word launched in the local lexicon by late T&T Guardian EIC, Carl Jacobs in the early 1990s - later borrowed by me, and “corrected” to read “switchcross” by editors of a UWI publication on the 1995 elections.

Still, none of this predictability makes elections dull or unimportant. Despite strikingly similar party agendas and shared reliance on state-driven solutions, electoral results should help shape public opinion, influence policy directions, and sharpen national priorities.

Consider actions against the scourge of violent crime, chronically (and in my view erroneously) focused on policing as supreme anodyne. Can you tell the difference between the parties, apart from the faces? GML’s Bavita Gopaulchan’s interrogation of some key players Monday together with platform rhetoric have not identified fundamental differences, though there is nothing to suggest an absence of genuine concern.

Also “economic diversification”- a fanciful term that pops up every cycle but rarely leads to comprehensive follow up, with every party hypnotically drawn back to energy revenues.

Heading into 2025, it all seems predictable. The way political content is being generated and spread appears to be a singular area of real change. Yesterday’s pamphleteers and propagandists are today’s social media activists, armed with memes and AI. Paid social media teams have long been assembled. The WhatsApp groups are teeming.

Meanwhile, much of the panic around AI-generated content - deepfakes, fake audio, doctored videos - isn’t about brand-new technology tailor-made for political deception. Even basic manipulation, enabling forged signatures and edited clips, has been around for ages.

The disgraceful Cambridge Analytica scandal of 2010 wasn’t the first or last of its kind either, though it did help push data privacy laws forward and brought current thinking on cybercrime more in line with reality.

Still, generative AI can make deception easier and more convincing. While AI isn’t the core problem, its misuse highlights how far some will go to mislead. The real issue seems to be the belief that dishonesty can win votes.

Cue the social scientists, now better known for off-the-cuff/top-of-the-head media “comments” as substitutes for studied research which, even so, needs to extend beyond the exclusive use of historical data. We should better understand the perils of over-reliance on both methods of explaining current realities.

But we can still look at some issues of historical fact for initial guidance. People are buzzing about the number of parties in this election - 17 in total. But that’s not a record. There were 19 in pandemic-stricken 2020. And back in 1976 and 1981, we had 11 and 12 respectively.

Voter turnout? Even the legendary 1986 33-3 landslide had a 65.45% turnout - still below the 88.11% peak of 1961. We’ve hovered around 65% average for decades. Without a major, phenomenal, shakeup, that’s unlikely to change.

But those with historical and contemporary interest would be well-advised to seek out some demographic indicators that have been largely absent in much of the current guesswork. I think there might be some important differences in 2025.

The presence of international observer missions is also more likely than not to confirm the professional conduct of the Elections and Boundaries Commissions (EBC), ritualised claims against which have never been proven outside of the predictable mauvais langue.

Ditto the importation of votes. I have before pointed to the existence of migration data to disprove longstanding mythical claims of 1961 malfeasance involving neighbouring island populations, and today there is the same kind of ole talk surrounding Venezuelans.

As for leadership changes close to elections? Not new. George Chambers became prime minister after Eric Williams’ death on March 29 and was appointed party leader after the fact, winning the elections of November 9, 1981.

ANR Robinson was chosen to lead the NAR months before the 1986 win. Kamla Persad-Bissessar won leadership of the UNC in January and led the party to victory in May 2010. The first time Keith Rowley entered an election as leader of the PNM was in the 2015 win.

In short, the drama might look different, but the stories are mostly the same. Let’s challenge ourselves to recognise today’s differences if there are any.

T&T’s digital drag

Though it does not currently appear to be the case, it should occur to all April 28 competitors that among the voting population there now resides a large cohort of adult folks who consider election promises to be dispensable fluff unless a clear path to achievability is offered.

This is defiant of even stubborn traditional loyalties and punishable by rejection of the entire system of electoral selection. Survey first and second-time eligible voters and see what I mean.

They, more than others, see that the penalty for not paying close attention to the “hows” of the numerous “whats” is the pain we repeatedly endure each time campaign dust settles and we begin going about our business in the expectation that some critical features of our lives will change ... for the better.

Among the common threads is the notion that the achievement of modernity in the conduct of public business has the potential to assure better outcomes. For the digital generation, this is an indispensable pre-requisite for deeper personal engagement.

For this group, an efficient, technology-driven government is not a luxury - it is a necessity. They view digital transformation as a prerequisite for deeper civic engagement and trust in leadership.

Let’s face it, there exists no fundamental ideological differences among the several contestants. There is no one on the national stage, for example, suggesting that the state should withdraw substantially from service delivery in key areas including public health, education, social infrastructure, and Eric Williams’  1973 direct and indirect control of the “commanding heights of the economy.”

Today, there is the challenge of engaging, even within the context of these longstanding philosophical commitments, the task of dragging the country, seemingly kicking and screaming, into the realities of vastly changed times.

This space has been used too many times to remind us that the digital economy is no longer a matter of choice and that hesitation on this matter is costing us dearly, inclusive of the psychological detachment of the young.

These people know that the resolution of challenges goes beyond the mere acquisition of the available technological tools and resides in the mindset that drives receptivity or rejection. There are numerous examples of where we lag significantly behind.

Every single political party, for example, has lamented difficulties regarding the “ease of doing business.”

The tech experts are meanwhile unanimously declaring that among the major obstacles is the fact that both private and public sector lethargy has contributed substantially to the current state of affairs and that the challenge exceeds the requirements of regulation and legislation.

Online government services are unreliable and the slow private sector embrace of appropriate technologies - through employment of digital façades to mask manual backends – has meant that things are almost purposely meant to proceed slowly and inefficiently.

No! An “online” transaction does not end in the ability to download a PDF for completion before emailing back to the agency! My online payment should not take days “to process.” You’re doing it all wrong because you do not truly trust it. It’s not paper and signatures and flesh and blood at a counter.

Until I see battalions of under-30s in the frontline of the required progress, I will remain sceptical about any real commitment to change. So don’t come to me with this “ease of doing business” bellyache without telling me how you propose to make the promised changes through readily available technological solutions that render transactions more cost-effective, seamless, and with the impact of lowering (not increasing) the cost of doing business.

Additionally, a brief word on the so-called “cashless economy” – an admirable objective that does not deserve casual, ill-advised rejection. All change involves real and/or perceived risks.

Cashless transactions, depending on how things are arranged, can in fact come up against privacy and other issues if we do not learn from others. But the wider, undeniable benefits of security and convenience demand that serious attention be paid to proper execution – if we ever reach that point.

A visually impaired beggar in India was recently photographed seeking contributions via a QR code on his t-shirt activating a phone cash transfer! The latter practice is widely employed throughout Asia and parts of Africa.

Speaking (embarrassingly) of which, we are among the last few Caribbean states to move to implement online Arrival Cards for incoming passengers. The story behind this goes beyond the availability of the technology and resides deep within negative mindsets.

There are loads of other things for voters to think about. These include words and behaviours that have served to jeopardise electability. Get past that and this country’s embarrassing digital lag needs to be among the top tier issues for decisive consideration.

Those election observers

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 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 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.

 

*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.