My first election observation mission could have been former President Jimmy Carter‘s last.
We were in Guyana. It was 1992, about a year after I’d been hired to work in the Carter Center’s Latin American and Caribbean Program. I spent election day observing in remote outposts, while Carter made a brief trip to observe in Amerindian villages near the Venezuelan border before returning to the capital of Georgetown. That evening, riots broke out.
Ignoring the advice of security, he made his way to the election commission, which was under attack from supporters of the ruling party who hoped to disrupt the vote count because they knew their candidate was losing. As hundreds of rioters stood outside throwing stones and clubs at the two-story wooden building, Carter got on the phone with the Guyanese president and demanded he send security forces to restore order so that the election could continue. The president complied. The …