GUYANA is an evolving democracy. We have managed over the several decades to free ourselves from colonial rule and PNC dictatorial rule. Today we can all take pride in the fact that we live in a full-fledged parliamentary democracy.The ministerial system of governance took place in the elections of 1953, which could be regarded as a watershed year in terms of constitutional advance, even though the first PPP government was short-lived, thanks to the intrigues of Anglo-American imperialism.
Prior to the elections of 1953, the franchise was limited only to the propertied class and those with money, one consequence of which was the preservation of the then status quo based on naked exploitation of the working class by a dominant expatriate class. This exploitative situation was facilitated by the Colonial Office, which did very little to protect the interests of the ordinary working people.
The rules of political engagement were to change radically with the advent of the People’s Progressive Party on the political stage. Under the dynamic and charismatic leadership of Dr. Cheddi Jagan, the working people found a true ally and friend who was never afraid to challenge the status quo.
To a very large extent, the introduction of mass-based political parties took shape and form in the outlines of the PPP, which was able to connect with the Guyanese people in all parts of the country and right across the ethnic spectrum.
And so it was that in the elections of 1953, the first under Universal Adult Suffrage, the PPP won a resounding victory, and set in motion a new political momentum which caught the colonial office off-guard. All manner of machinations and intrigues were used by western vested interests, in collaboration with local reactionary groups, to remove the PPP from office, including attempts to emasculate the PPP and its leadership.
This found expression in the split of the PPP in 1955 after Forbes Burnham sought, unsuccessfully, to take over the leadership of the PPP from Dr. Jagan.
The split in the PPP was largely ideological and tactical as Dr. Jagan retained the support of a vast majority of Africans in the party. However, the split was exploited by opportunist elements to create ethnic division, especially during the early 1960s, which provided the British Government with the excuse it had wanted to impose a new model of government based on proportional representation aimed at removing the PPP from government.
The British Government, under pressure from the United States deliberately withheld political independence for the colony until the PPP was engineered out of office as in fact happened in the elections of 1964. Two years later Britain granted independence status to the colony on May 26, 1966 under the PNC-UF coalition Government.
It took well over two decades before constitutional and democratic rule returned to the country in the elections of October 5, 1992. An entirely new cohort of voters has since emerged who never experienced what life was like during those painful days of authoritarian rule.
Many, including some psuedo-intellectuals, peddle all manner of misinformation about our past history in their attempts to denigrate the role of the PPP in the struggle for a free and democratic society. Facts however, are stubborn things and no amount of distortion and misinformation can erase from the historical records and our collective institutional memory the role played by the PPP in the advance of the constitutional rights of the Guyanese people.
Writteb By HYDAR ALLY