GUYANA IS a politically diverse society. It has two main political parties which has shared the seat of government since the granting of universal adult suffrage in 1953 which saw for the first time the emergence of mass-based political parties vying for political power.
Prior to 1953, power resided almost exclusively in the hands of the colonial administration due to a combination of a limited franchise and a nominated system of representation whereby a number of key positions were done on the basis of nomination by the Governor acting on the advice of Her Majesty’s government.
It came, therefore, as a big surprise to the British Government when in the elections of 1953 the PPP, then a fledgling political party under the leadership of Dr. Cheddi Jagan won a landslide victory winning 18 of the 24 seats in Parliament.
The British Government clearly did not bargain for such a massive restructuring of the governance structure and did everything possible to unseat the PPP from power including the suspension of the constitution and the jailing of several of the leaders of the PPP including Dr. Cheddi Jagan and his wife Janet Jagan. Many other leaders had their freedom restricted all in an effort to emasculate and hopefully destroy the PPP as a political party.
That was some fifty-eight years ago when the country experienced what could be regarded as its first democratic elections which was won by the People’s Progressive Party. The suspension of the constitution by the British after a mere six months in office by the PPP aborted the democratic process momentarily but it did not kill the democratic aspirations of the Guyanese people. Despite an engineered split of the PPP in 1955 the Party again won the elections of 1957 with a comfortable margin of victory, winning 9 of the 14 seats.
The British Government, by way of boundary manipulation and gerrymandering, had redrawn the constituency boundaries in order to give the opposition parties an electoral advantage but it did not prevent the PPP from winning the elections with substantial margin of victory.
The PPP continued to win the elections in 1961 but by this time race begun to raise its ugly head, through a series of strikes and demonstrations against the PPP government with the active support of the US CIA, which worked through the trade union movement and sections of the churches to undermine democratic rule and creating the façade that Guyana’s politics was too much entangled in a web of race-based politics, and in the process imposed a new model of governance based on proportional representation.
It can be argued not without justification that the introduction of proportional representation as opposed to the previous constituency model reinforced ethnic cleavages in the society rather than solved the ethnic dilemma. This was borne out in the elections of 1964 which saw party support bearing a striking resemblance to the ethnic makeup of the society. This came about largely because of the incessant attacks on the PPP by the opposition parties and calculated and contrived manoeuvres on the part of opposition elements to project the PPP as an ‘Indian’ party.
The split of the PPP in 1955 and a second split even though less severe in impact did not help the cause of the PPP and its quest for national unity but the Party continued to win elections even though with a reduced majority paving the way for the formation of a coalition government between the PNC and the UF in the elections of 1964. The PPP polled the highest number of votes but it failed to win an outright majority. The imposition of proportional representation did achieve the planned objective of removing the PPP from the seat of government even though it was done at great expense to the democratic process. In fact, the imposition of proportional representation was described by former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson as a “fiddled constitutional arrangement” aimed at removing the popular and democratically elected PPP from office.
It is to the credit of the PPP and its leadership that the PPP never lost a general election since its formation in 1950, barring of course the rigged elections from 1968 to 1985. The democratic processes were ruptured by the PNC which used the army and police to suppress and deny democracy to the Guyanese people. These are facts which some people are uncomfortable with but whether we like it or not, they simply cannot be erased from the collective memory of the Guyanese people.
There are some commentators who sought to create the impression that the PPP is an imposition on the Guyanese people. They conveniently ignore the fact that the PPP is today the largest and strongest multi-racial party with significant political and electoral support from a wide cross-section of the Guyanese society including an increasing number of Amerindian and Afro-Guyanese support.
As we approach yet another general and regional election, there will be those who will once again try to exploit our ethnic diversity in an attempt to score political points. Statements will be deliberately distorted and put out of context as is currently taking place by some opposition elements and any reference to the past is misconstrued and twisted out of context for partisan gains.
The truth is that we simply cannot wish away the past as is being advocated by some.
As the saying goes, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The current administration has demonstrated that when it comes to sharing the resources and benefits of the State it is colour- blind.
All Guyanese, regardless of ethnic or political affiliation are provided with the opportunity to participate in national life.