THERE is a wide perception that the two major political parties are ethnically based. Yes, Guyana is primarily made up of Africans and Indians, but this frame of thought traps us into seeing things only ethnically, along the lines of Africans and Indians. These two groups are not the only ethnic groups. The Bureau of Statistics Population Distribution by Nationality, Background / Ethnicity, Guyana: 2002 revealed that there are 43% of East Indians, and 30% of Africans. Coupled with this, Amerindians account for 9% of the population, with a staggering 17% of Guyanese being of Mixed race. I will point out here that the Mixed race encompasses individuals that have a mixture of any of the different ethnicities, not limited to Africans and Indians only.
In the constant Indian/African rhetoric, these two other ethnic groups are inadvertently neglected, and seen as an insignificant variable in the equation of Guyana’s politics, in voting, and in political decision-making. These pessimists, in generalising and categorising that the nature of persons’ votes as ethnically based, do not account for these other groups that roughly, make up 127,500 persons, and 60,750, Mixed and Amerindian individuals, respectively. This is where their argument of ethnic voting breaks down. If, per chance, this argument is given some thought, and we assume that Indians vote ethnically for the PPP, and Africans vote ethnically for the PNCR, the so called traditional African party, are we to assume that these other groups do not vote? They are just as significant as the other major groups, and, like these other groups, are constitutionally afforded the right to vote.
We cannot determine the motives for an individual’s vote. Neither can we absolutely confirm that any individual voted on the basis on ethnicity, unless we are unequivocally told so by that individual. Hence, to surmise that the PPP wins elections solely with ethnic votes is a false analysis that misrepresents the actual facts of Guyana’s demographics. Our demographics tell us that it is impossible for any party to secure political office solely with an ethnic support base. This forces us to acknowledge the very real existence of cross-ethnic voting that occurs every five years, when national elections are held. In the 1997 national elections, there was cross-ethnic voting in favour of the PPP/C in Regions One, Two, Four, Seven, and 10. In the 2001 and 2006 elections, this was also the case. The PPP/C did not ultimately conquer Regions One, Two, Four, Seven and 10, but it did increase its voting base in these regions at successive elections from 1997 through 2006. This is indeed a positive indicator of issue-based politics in Guyana.
We have to appreciate that as Guyanese, we are capable of making educated choices. Let us not continue to submit to one biased way of thinking along ethnic lines, since it is this mentality of Indians/Africans that has brought us to this state.