There is a type of atavistic politics developing in Guyana that has the potential to derail the slow movement of our politics into a less confrontational trajectory: the politics of outbidding. The classic statement on the phenomenon was made by Donald Horowitz: Societies that are deeply riven along a preponderant ethnic cleavage (as is the case in Guyana) tend to throw up party systems that mirror the ethnic divide. However, two types of parties usually appear to challenge the dominant ethnic parties. The first are “multiracial” parties that purport to bring the groups under one banner and the other are ethnic “flank” parties or organisations that push the dominant parties into adopting more extreme ethnic positions.
It is unfortunate, but not surprising, that this type of political mobilisation characterised our political participation – exemplified by the PPP and PNC – after 1957. The dictatorship of the PNC from 1968 to 1992, distorted the political system since their electoral rigging made opposition parties of whatever variety, moot. The “multiracial” Working Peoples Association (WPA), launched in 1974, made a big impact but foundered after its leading light Dr Walter Rodney was assassinated in 1980. In 1992, when “free and fair” elections were returned, even though it was convinced it had broken ethnic voting the WPA garnered a mere 2% of the votes.
In the elections of 1997, 2001 and 2006, the WPA failed to break out of its peripheral role, even as widespread violence erupted when gunmen holed up in Buxton – labelled “Resistance Fighters” by one WPA Executive – took on the Police Force and massacred innocent citizens. The Alliance for Change (AFC), launched as a “multiracial party” in 2005 and did well at the 2006 elections. For the November 2011 elections, the PNC evidently was persuaded by the WPA remnants to coalesce with them and three other “micro parties”- to declare it was now “A Partnership for National Unity” (APNU).
It would appear that after the paroxysm of ethnic violence in the first decade of this millennium the PNC was reacting to the changing demographics of Guyana – driven by an ethnically differential rate of emigration. Guyana was now a nation of minorities and they must have calculated a coalition that masked its presence, could compete without resorting to extra-parliamentary measures, such as the “mo-fyaah; slow fyaah strategy of Desmond Hoyte after 1997.
In 2011, the AFC provided a home for disaffected PPP executive Moses Nagamootoo. He was able to woo traditional PPP supporters, especially from Berbice, disaffected by the travails in the sugar industry and by incumbency fatigue. APNU and AFC together checkmated the PPP and restricted them to a plurality-controlled presidency. In the 2015 elections, the APNU/AFC coalesced and were able to capture the government. However, Granger shot the coalition in the foot when he unilaterally closed four sugar estates and throwing 7000 primarily Indian Guyanese sugar workers, on the breadlines.
In the March 2020 elections when it realised it had lost, the PNC reflexively launched moves to rig and were supported by the WPA remnants and the AFC but they had to demit office by August. Since then, however, the WPA remnants, which boasted about its “multiracial credentials” built on the credibility of Walter Rodney, has performatively taken the lead to further polarize the local politics ethnically. They are pushing the PNC into a more “Hoytean” confrontational mode and abandoning democratic politics. Using social media that has now become ubiquitous to speak directly to the PNC’s base, the WPA remnants declared the PPP government to be creating an “emerging apartheid state” that must be confronted outside of parliament.
In this way they are outbidding the PNC within its base so that the latter has to either move in their direction of see its base whittled away. It is quite ironic that the rump of the party of Walter Rodney is reintroducing confrontational ethnic politics. They have promised a “Day of Resistance” on June 12, Local Government Elections Day, which they are boycotting and probably hoping to intimidate voters.
