Even though the last census was conducted in 2012 and “preliminary” figures were issued two years ago, the most sought-after statistic – the ethnic breakdown of the population – was not included.
Voting in Guyana had always been correlated with ethnicity (elections here were routinely dubbed “ethnic censuses”) and the citizenry’s interest was always piqued with censuses since they felt they were getting a preview of the next elections.
With the combined Opposition parties APNU and AFC garnering a one-seat majority at the 2011 elections, interest was even more intense about the ethnic composition of the preliminary total count of 747,884 announced in 2014.
Exactly two years later this month, the “final” figures, including the ethnic breakdown of the 746,955 count were revealed. The loss of the Presidency by the PPP confirmed what the results of the 2015 elections had suggested based on the historic correlation between ethnicity and voting: the trends in earlier censuses continued inexorably: East Indians, who traditionally voted en masse for the PPP had decreased by almost 100,000 since 1980 – from 394,417 to 297,493 and in percentage terms from 51.93 per cent to 39.83 per cent.
Africans, who traditionally supported the PNC – now in alliance with some paper-parties as APNU – had also decreased, but not nearly as much as East Indians. They dipped from 234,094 in 1980 to 218,483 or 30.82 per cent to 29.25 per cent.
Significantly, the “Mixed” category – a large majority of who traditionally voted for the PNC continued its rapid growth: from 84,764 in 1980 to 148,532 or from 11.16 per cent of the total populace to 19.88 per cent. When these two groups are combined they now form 49.13 per cent of the population of the country – almost an absolute majority.
The other large ethnic group in the country – the Indigenous Peoples – who are still labelled by the Statistical Bureau as “Amerindians” – also increased significantly, like the Mixed category: from 40,343 in 1980 to 78,492 or 5.31 per cent to 10.51 per cent. The Chinese, Portuguese, White and “other” comprise merely 0.53 per cent down from 0.69 per cent in 1980.
Many commentators have remarked on the political implications of these demographic changes of which the most significant has been the loss of an absolute majority by the East Indian population and the near achievement of that status by the combined African and Mixed categories.
While on paper the East Indians combined with the Indigenous Peoples comprise a wafer thin majority, by 2010, when the next elections are scheduled, this advantage would have disappeared with the accelerating exodus of the former group.
There are those that claim the percentage of votes secured by the PPP at elections between 1992 and 2006 were in excess of the numbers of East Indians in the population and this might have been due to a significant ethnic “cross-over” vote. While there was some of this occurring – especially from the Indigenous Peoples vote due to patronage politics – a more significant factor that became evident when the votes at polling stations are disaggregated, was the PPP’s formidable party machinery brought out a higher percentage of their constituency.
In 2015, APNU overtly courted the AFC to secure a percentage of the East Indian vote – touted at 11% before the elections. With the changing demographics, and the wherewithal to now practice patronage politics among the growing Indigenous Peoples, it would appear that if APNU can continue the work it did in 2011 and 2014 with ex-military personnel bringing out the votes in its traditional African/Mixed constituency, it would not need to coalesce with the AFC to secure a majority on its own.
This scenario suggests a reason for the talk of “shared governance” from APNU quarters disappearing: why share the pie when they can have it all? While the PPP will still retain a significant percentage of the vote if they retain only their traditional East Indian constituency, they are in no position in or out of Parliament to influence APNU’s policies.
They will have to court voters outside of that constituency for 2020 and beyond.
