People voted in Guyana's general election on Monday with apparently only a few hiccups and without the violence some people feared might erupt. So far, so good.

Whatever the outcome of the election in that country, whose politics is sharply divided along ethnic lines, we hope that there is no repeat of the situation of the previous two elections. Then, Opposition doubts about the legitimacy of the vote led to violence.

Should there now be political violence, its impact is likely to be far worse that in 1997 and 2002. Already, criminals have created a crisis of security in the country and the danger is that they may seek to exploit political and ethnic tensions to their own ends. It is important, therefore, that the People's Progressive Party (PPP) of President Bharrat Jagdeo, with its mainly Indo-Guyanese and Mr. Robert Corbin's People's National Congress (PNC), the main party for Afro-Guyanese, behave with restraint and maturity.

For Guyana is already among the poorest countries in the hemisphere and its economic recovery of recent years has been weakened by both external shocks and the surge of criminal violence. Political instability can only worsen the situation and bring misery to the Guyanese people.

This is not an issue that should be of concern for Georgetown only. Jamaica and Guyana's other partners in the Caribbean Community have an interest in the country's stability.

Although Guyana is located on the South America mainland it is indelibly part of the English-speaking Caribbean, a small region where those who observe from outside do not often make nuanced geo-political distinctions. But more critically, Guyana as a member of Caricom is an integral part of the move to a single market and single economy. Long-term instability in Georgetown, or any single market state, will undermine the process and, ultimately, will not be restricted only to the domestic economy.

In this regard, we expect that Jamaica will exercise its political leadership in Caricom and that Prime Minister Simpson Miller will tell President Bharrat Jagdeo and Opposition Leader Robert Corbin what is expected of them. Indeed, Caricom must, as it did in the previous elections, be ready to send a mediation team to Guyana to help the parties work through any difficulties. If it comes to it, Caricom should be prepared to send security forces to Guyana to help maintain law and order, which reinforces our argument for the expansion of the Regional Security System (RSS) to a regionwide, standing rapid deployment force under joint regional command.

Hopefully, none of this becomes necessary. But whatever the outcome of the elections, it is clear that the Guyanese leadership has immediate security issues to address.

Perhaps the most important of these must be the naming of a police chief who - unlike the acting commissioner, Henry Green, who has been banned from the United States on suspicion of being involved in the drug racket, can command international respect.

An assumption that the security chief is corrupt is bound to give confidence to the narco-traffickers and raise suspicion about the government, which can only weaken it. In this regard, while Guyana guards its sovereignty, the person who is the President today has to take a long and hard look at the reality.